Tribology International 32 (1999) 275–282 www.elsevier.com/locate/triboint Study of the parametric dependence of erosion wear for the parallel flow of solid–liquid mixtures B.K. Gandhi a,* , S.N. Singh b , V. Seshadri b a Mechanical Engineering Department, SGSITS, Indore (MP) 452 003, India b Department of Applied Mechanics, Indian Institute of Technology, Hauz Khas, New Delhi 110 016, India Received 21 August 1998; received in revised form 6 June 1999; accepted 22 July 1999 Abstract The phenomenon of erosion wear due to the cutting action of solid particles in solid–liquid mixture flows has been studied in a slurry pot tester. Special fixtures and design modifications were incorporated in a slurry pot tester in order to ensure that the erosive wear on the wear piece is primarily due to parallel flow of the mixture. Experiments performed at various solid concen- trations, particle sizes and velocities, show that the parallel flow wear increases with increase in solid concentration, particle size and velocity. The parametric dependence on velocity is comparatively much stronger as compared to that on either solid concentration or particle size.  1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Solid-liquid flow; Erosion; Cutting wear; Pot tester 1. Introduction The extent of erosive wear in pipe and pump com- ponents plays a decisive role in the design and operation of a slurry transportation system. Hence it is essential to understand the complete mechanism of the process of erosion. Erosion normally takes place due to two comp- lementary mechanisms, namely cutting and deformation. Studies reported on erosion wear [1–4] have concluded that the phenomenon of cutting wear is associated with particle velocity parallel to the wear surface where as deformation wear is associated with particle velocity normal to the wear surface. Bitter [1] has proposed cor- relations for the estimation of erosion wear due to the two mechanisms which occur simultaneously. For cut- ting wear, he has proposed two correlations based on the two alternate models described in his paper. His analysis has also highlighted the shortcomings in the analysis of Finnie [2] for erosion wear. Many investigators [3,4] have reported that erosion in slurry pipelines is mainly caused by the cutting action of suspended solid particles as the angle of impact for pipe flow is very small. Wel- linger and Uetz [5] have found that this angle is less * Corresponding author.. 0301-679X/99/$ - see front matter  1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII:S0301-679X(99)00047-X than 5° during their tests. Jacobs and James [6] from their extensive experiments in a pilot plant, have shown that the wear increases with increase in solid concen- tration (by volume), particle size and velocity. The rate of increase of wear with velocity is relatively much higher than the other two parameters. To understand the complexities of erosion wear, researchers [7–9] started looking for ways and means for generating extensive experimental data on erosion wear at an accelerated rate with minimum cost. This led to the development of pot tester [7]. Tsai et al. [7] have discussed the design aspects of such a pot tester in detail, which they have used to study the extent of erosion for Coal slurries in kerosene. Using a similar pot tester, Levy et al. [8] have shown that erosion rate increases with increase in solid concentration. Gupta et al. [9] from their experimental data in a similar pot tester, have also derived correlations for the prediction of wear rate and the general form of their correlation is given by E w =KV a d b C g w (1) where K, a, b and g are constants whose values depend on the properties of the material of solid particles as well as wear surface. They used these correlations to predict the local wear rate along the circumference of a slurry pipeline incor-