Erosion by turbulence: Discovering the counter-wise vortex events and their effect on wear

Abstract

Understanding the wear process has been critical for developing and maintaining engineered systems handling particle-laden flows, such as pipelines, valves, pumps, and mixers. This work explores the use of ultrasound velocimetry for determining the velocity and impact angle of particles projected from a turbulent slurry flow onto a moving target surface. The flow is generated in a slurry pot configuration at four levels of rotational frequency: 1900, 2200, 2500 and 3300 rpm. Acoustic images acquired in the B-mode are processed by Ultrasound Particle Tracking Velocimetry (U-PTV) and Ultrasound Particle Image Velocimetry (U-PIV) to determine the impact velocities and impact angles of individual particles in the radial plane. Particle impacts at velocities higher than the tangential velocity of the rotating axis are observed and named counter-wise impact due to their association with counter-wise vortices impacting in the direction contrary to the translation of the moving surface. The applicability of U-PTV and U-PIV for the study of particle-laden turbulent flow is discussed and a statistical analysis of particle impacts energy is conducted. The counter-wise impacts are found relevant to erosive wear because of their relatively high velocity (upper quartile) and because most of the impact energy is conveyed through the tangential component.