Development of a Cavitation Erosion Resistant Advanced Material System

摘要

Advancements in both the design and construction of high-speed naval vessels have necessitated the evaluation of the building materials in a cavitating environment. Given their weight advantages, construction materials are often either aluminum or glass reinforced polymer (GRP) composites. Historically, neither of these materials has performed well in a cavitating environment. The objective of this effort was to evaluate cavitation erosion protection alternatives for a GRP composite structure used in a cavitating environment. Screening of the various design alternatives was done using the ASTM 032 vibratory induced cavitation test method and a relative ranking of each protection system was generated. Results from the testing show that a GRP composite system can be designed to greatly increase the cavitation erosion resistance of the material, but this resistance remains below common metallic materials. A solution identified during this study involves the use of durable elastomer materials as the protection mechanism.