Damage assessment of titania filled zinc–aluminum alloy metal matrix composites in erosive environment: A comparative study

The present research work, describes the development of particulate filled alloy composites consisting of ZA-27 alloy as a base material and titania particulate as reinforcing materials. The objective of the present work is to study the erosion wear behavior of particulate filled alloy composites by Taguchi experimental design technique at four different impact velocities (25–79 m/s), erodent temperature (40–100 °C), impingement angles (30–90°) and erodent size (250–550 μm) respectively. A finite element simulation model (ANSYS/AUTODYN) for damage assessment in erosion is developed and validated by a well designed set of experiments. It is observed that the experimental results are in good agreement with the computational results and the proposed simulation model is very useful for damage assessment. However, a series of steady state erosion analysis is also conducted by varying the impingement angle and impact velocity one at a time while keeping other factors remains constant before studying the Taguchi experimental results. From this analysis it is observed that the peak erosion rate occur at about 60° impingement angle at constant impact velocity (66 m/s), erodent size (450 μm), stand-off-distance (75 mm) and erodent temperature (60 °C) for all the composites. However, the steady state erosion rate as a function of impact velocity for unfilled composite shows maximum erosion rate as compared to filled composites at constant impingement angle (45°), erodent size (450 μm), stand-off-distance (75 mm) and erodent temperature (60 °C) respectively. Finally, the damage mechanisms of eroded surfaces are investigated using scanning electron microscope (SEM).