Wear behaviors of ceramic nozzles with laminated structure at their entry

Laminated ceramic nozzles (GN1, GN2, and GN3) with different architecture and composition at the constituent layers were produced by hot pressing. The mechanical properties of the constituent layers of the laminated materials were measured, the microstructure was examined. The wear behaviors of these laminated nozzles were investigated and compared with an unstressed reference nozzle (CN). Results showed that the surface layer (nozzle entry) possessed higher hardness and fracture toughness than those of other layers of the laminated nozzles, and is greatly improved over the stress-free nozzle. The laminated nozzles had superior erosion wear resistance to that of the stress-free one, especially at the nozzle entry. The mechanism responsible was explained as the formation of compressive residual stresses at the entry of the laminated nozzles during fabricating processes. The erosion wear resistance of the laminated nozzles was influenced not only by the volume fraction of the constituent layers, but also by the difference in composition between adjacent layers. The GN2 nozzle with 2% difference of (W,Ti)C content between adjacent layers exhibited higher erosion wear resistance over the GN1 and GN3 nozzles. Surface mechanical properties improvement at the entry area was found to be the main reason for the increase of erosion wear resistance of the GN2 nozzle.