Int. J. Surface Science and Engineering, Vol. 11, No. 2, 2017 85 Copyright © 2017 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. Experimental investigation on erosion performance and wear factors of custom 450 steel as the first row blade material of an axial compressor Esmaeil Poursaeidi*, Alireza Mohammadi Niaei, Masoud Arablu and Akbar Salarvand Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Zanjan, P.O. Box 45195-313, Zanjan, Iran Email: armn.mech@gmail.com Email: mohammadi.alireza@alumni.znu.ac.ir Email: arablou.m@gmail.com Email: ak_salarvand@yahoo.com *Corresponding author Abstract: A first-stage blade of an axial compressor was fractured after 30,895 hours of operation due to existence of pits and micro-cracks, which were created by erosion and poor corrosion mechanisms. In this research, erosion of the blade material is tested under simulated conditions of the real blade. Abrasive particles impingement angles of 90° and 54° are tested to predict the erosion characteristics on the blade. The predicted blade erosion is validated using the data taken from on-site blades. The eroded specimens are examined by scanning electron microscopy, and wavelength- and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. According to the observations, although the 90° impingements make more pits than 54° impingements, the latter creates longer and more critical pits than the former. Furthermore, the results show that the erosion in the on-site blades is strong enough to assist the formation of severe pits on them which eliminates the crack initiation time. Keywords: compressor blade; erosion; deformation and cutting wear factors; pit. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Poursaeidi, E., Mohammadi Niaei, A., Arablu, M. and Salarvand, A. (2017) ‘Experimental investigation on erosion performance and wear factors of custom 450 steel as the first row blade material of an axial compressor’, Int. J. Surface Science and Engineering, Vol. 11, No. 2, pp.85–99. Biographical notes: Esmaeil Poursaeidi is a Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Zanjan, Iran. He received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering at the Tarbiat Modarres University, Iran. He is the Head of Ishrag Group, Research Group on Failure Analysis and Life Assessment and repairing turbo-compressor components. His main activities include fracture mechanics and stress analysis by means of experimental and numerical analysis.