Abrasive Erosion Comparison for a Ceramics and a High Chrome Cast Iron Applied in a Slurry Pump

摘要

Slurry pumps are used to transport the liquid fluids with solid particles in the industries. The materials of flow passage in a slurry pump are subjected to severe damage due to abrasive erosion. This paper compares the abrasive erosion for an engineering ceramics i.e. hot pressed Si_3N_4 ceramics and a high chrome cast iron i.e. Cr26 by laboratory test and industrial operation. The results indicate that the erosion rate of Cr26 is much larger than that of hot pressed Si_3N_4 ceramics under the same test conditions. That indicates that the engineering ceramics is a promising alternation of the expensive material such as Cr26 in the application of slurry pumps. It is noted that the erosion pattern such as scale ripple has the similar features for both materials, even the hardness of hot pressed Si_3N_4 ceramics is much higher than Cr26. Further, the scale ripple is suspected to be originated from the relatively weak grain boundary and enhanced by cavitation.