Engineering Failure Analysis 97 (2019) 844–853

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Engineering Failure Analysis

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/engfailanal

The role of abrasive particle size on erosion characteristics of

T
stainless steel
Q.B. Nguyena,b, D.N. Nguyena, R. Murrayb, N.X. Cac, C.Y.H. Limd, M. Guptad,
X.C. Nguyene,f,
⁎

a
Institute of Research and Development, Duy Tan University, Da Nang 550000, Viet Nam
b
Advanced Manufacturing Alliance, Charles Darwin University, 0909, Australia
c
Faculty of Physics and Technology, Thai Nguyen University of Sciences, Viet Nam
d
Department of Mechanical Engineering, National University of Singapore 9 Engineering Drive 1, 117576, Singapore
e
Laboratory of Advanced Materials Chemistry, Advanced Institute of Materials Science, Ton Duc Thang University, Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam
f
Faculty of Applied Sciences, Ton Duc Thang University, Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: Understanding the erosion characteristics in oil and gas equipment and abrasive transportation is
Slurry erosion, erosion rate of vitally important to implement the engineering design and subsequently prevent failures. In
Surface profile this study, an in-house erosion test facility was designed and built up and its performance was
Erosion mechanisms tested through studying the size effect of abrasive sand particle on the erosion behaviour of a
Microstructure
commonly used stainless steel material in the oil exploitation field. The experimental results
reveal that the erosion rate (kg/impact), the depth of erosion as well as the surface roughness
increased while the width of wear scar decreased with the increasing of particle size. In addition,
it's interesting to observe the shape of erosion scar changing from “W” to “U” shape when the
particle size became bigger. Further, four main types of erosion mechanisms involved in the
erosion process, namely, plastic deformation induced indentation, ploughing, cutting and sliding,
and correlation between the erosion characteristics and microstructure is discussed.

1. Introduction

It has been estimated that 70% of the world oil and gas reserves are contained in sandstone reservoirs. Therefore, oil and gas
production from most reservoirs are often associated with impurities such as abrasive sand particles, water, and others. Sand particles
entrained in the well stream may then result in erosive wear throughout the production system leading to the degradation of the
production system [1–3]. Conducting an inspection in subsea environment is usually expensive and complicated, and may require
production shut-down which will increase the capital and operating expenditure of an oil and gas project. More recently, the high cost
of subsea production coupled with decreasing oil price is resulting in lower profit margin for subsea production. As such, severe
equipment failure due to erosion would result in significant increase to the already high cost and could render subsea production
unprofitable [4–6]. Other than the economic impacts, an erosion failure of the production system may result in leakage of production
fluid into the subsea environment causing catastrophic and toxic effects to the marine ecosystems [7–9]. Thus, understanding the
erosion characteristics in oil and gas equipment and abrasive transportation is of vitally important to implement the engineering
design and subsequently prevent unwanted failures.

⁎
Corresponding author at: Faculty of Applied Sciences, Ton Duc Thang University, Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam.
E-mail address: [email protected] (X.C. Nguyen).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.engfailanal.2019.01.020
Received 11 September 2018; Received in revised form 26 December 2018; Accepted 2 January 2019
Available online 03 January 2019
1350-6307/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Q.B. Nguyen et al. Engineering Failure Analysis 97 (2019) 844–853

Table 1
Experimental setup parameters.
Volume of water 40 l

Sand concentration in slurry 0.5 vol%

Mass of sand used 480 g
Mean sand particle diameter 50, 80, 150, 350, 450 and 700 μm
Stirrer speed 80 rpm
Peristaltic pump speed 43.5 rpm
Fluid flow velocity 30 ms−1
Impingement duration 10 min
Pulsation dampener pressure 4.7 bar
Impingement Angle 90o
Distance from the nozzle to target 12.7 mm

The literature search shows several types of test rigs have been developed to carry out the erosion tests for different types of
materials ranging from ductile and brittle metals, ceramic, polymer to composites [10–15]. The results generally revealed “U-shape”
erosion scar for brittle materials while “W-shape” erosion scar for ductile materials [16–20]. However, the conclusions were only true
at the small particle size and the real fact in oil and gas production is that the abrasive particle sizes are a mixture of different sizes
[21,22]. Limited research has been so far carried out to study the roles of particle size on erosion behavior of stainless steels [23].
Accordingly, the main aims of this project are to develop an advanced erosion test rig using peristaltic pump and study the effect
of abrasive particle sizes ranging from 50 μm to 700 μm on microstructure and erosion characteristics of stainless steel. An attempt is
also carried out to establish the erosion rate, erosion profile and erosion mechanisms using different characterization techniques such
as 3D-surface profilometer, scanning electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy.

2. Experimental procedure

2.1. Sample preparation

25 × 25 × 5 mm samples with an experimental density of 7929 kg/m3 were cut from a 500 × 500 × 5 mm stainless steel SUS-
304 sheet using a precision laser cutting machine. Prior to laser cut, the stainless steel sheet was auto-polished to a mirror level with
an average surface roughness of 25 nm [24]. All the furs at the sides of sample were removed and the samples were alcohol washed in
an ultrasonic bath and then hot dried and kept inside the digital dry cabinet prior to the tests. Chemical composition of the stainless
steel SUS-304 is as C ~ 0.024%, Si ~ 0.55%, Mn ~ 1.8%, P ~ 0.03%, S < 0.001%, Cr ~ 18.2%, Ni ~ 8.2%, N ~ 0.049% and Fe
balance. Its mechanical properties are as 0.2% proof strength ~ 296 Mpa, 1% proof strength ~ 327 Mpa, Tensile strength ~ 616 Mpa,
Elongation at 5 mm ~ 56%, elongation at 50 mm ~ 55% and brinell hardness ~ 187. A detail of experimental setup parameters for
the present study is presented in Table 1.

2.2. Sand material

Abrasive sand particles were in different size ranges of 50, 80, 150, 350, 450 and 700 μm with an averagely experimental
angularity of 0.58. Sand material contains mainly aluminum oxide with chemical composition of Al2O3 ~ 95%, TiO2 ~ 3%,
SiO2 ~ 1.3%, F2O3 ~ 0.16%, CaO ~ 0.5%. The sand has a density of 2400 kg/m3 and a hardness of 9 Moh. In this study, a constant
0.5 vol% of sand was used as it is a nominal value in the literature search (Table 1).

2.3. Weight loss

Prior to the test, the samples were taken out from the dry cabinet and measured its weight immediately to avoid the humidity
effect, using a microelectronic balance with an accuracy of 0.00001 g. The samples after test were first water washed, air-blew and
then alcohol washed in the ultrasonic bath, hot dried and kept inside the dry cabinet for at least two hours before measuring its
weight to ensure that all sand particles are ultrasonically removed and there is no effect of differential humidity. The weight loss was
then calculated accordingly.

2.4. Erosion rate

There are several ways of expressing erosion rate in which each case reflects its own nature of erosion. Finnie [25] adopted a
dimensionless erosion rate of the mass loss of the material per mass of impacted particles while investigating the effects of varying
particle impact angle as follows.
Sample weight loss
E1 = (kg/kg)
Sand weight consumed (1)
−1
The erosion rate is then expressed in the unit of kgkg . Due to the fact that this erosion rate is dimensionless, it allows easy

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comparison of experimental results between experiments that investigate different parameter influence.
On the other hand, while investigating the effects of varying particle size, Clark et al. [23] and Abouel-Kasem [26] considered the
mass loss of the material per particle impact as the erosion rate. The erosion rate is then expressed in the unit of kg/impact. This
erosion rate expression serves to investigate the effect of particle impact energy on the erosion of material. The equation is expressed
as follows:
Sample weight loss
E2 = (kg/impact)
Number _of _particle (2)

2.5. Surface characterization

Surface characterization was carried out to examine the sample surface profile, surface roughness, its microstructures as well as
erosion mechanisms using different characterization tools including mechanical surface profiler, stylus surface profilometer, field
emission scanning electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy.

3. Results and discussion

3.1. Wet erosion test rig

The in-house slurry erosion test machine was designed and built according to ASTM-G73 using peristaltic pump which uses an
abrasive resistant rubber hose to transfer an exact amount of the abrasive particle per revolution [24]. The developed test rig is
basically a close, circulated and automated system. Sand particles and liquid or corrosive medium, particularly water in this study,
are pre-mixed in the agitating tank using a frequency controllable motor. The tank bed and stirring blade were designed to incline 30°
to the horizontal direction to achieve auto-lift up mechanism so that sand particles is well mixed in the agitating tank at an even low
stirring speed. The medium of sand and water is then pumped to the pulsation dampener using a powerful and speed adjustable
40SPX Bredel peristaltic pump. The discharged flow is smoothened by regulating the pulsation dampener pressure before shooting to
the sample through a 6.4 mm diameter stainless steel nozzle and the discharged medium is then drained to the agitating tank. The
pulsation dampener pressure is set according to the discharged pressure at the nozzle and varies with the impacting velocities. The
sample holder is designed to rotate from 0 to 90° and is adjustable in x and z directions. In this study, the distance from nozzle to the
sample, the impact angle, the mixing speed and flow velocity were fixed and summarized in Table 1.
The literature search shows that several types of erosion test rigs, such as pipe loop, jet impingement, toroid wheel, and slurry pot
have been built to study the erosion behaviors of different materials under specific situation in various environmental conditions
[6,14,18,19,22,27]. Some of the tests use the centrifugal pump in which the steel blade is in direct contact with abrasive medium. The
blade is worn out after a several times of use and is thus needed to replace with a new one. This leads to a huge variation in flow
velocity and inaccuracy of the abrasive amount transported during the test, therefore reduces the reliability of experimental results.
To avoid this issue, the peristaltic pump without the use of any blade was integrated in the design of the erosion test rig in this study.
The main advantages of employing the peristaltic pump are that firstly the flow velocity is accurately and smoothly controlled by
regulating the number of revolution per minute through the art of frequency tuning. Secondly, the peristaltic pump uses a natural
rubber hose, which is abrasively resistant, to transport the abrasive medium from the pot to the blasting nozzle and the abrasive
resistant rubber hose is able to last for several years of use. Thus high accurate and consistent flow velocity is achieved and main-
tained through a long test and minimal maintenance is needed.

3.2. Erosion rate

At each particle size, five samples were tested and the average erosion rates, E1 and E2, were calculated and tabulated in Table 2.
It is observed that in a single set of testing, the erosion rate of the stainless steel sample for the 1st cycle tended to be marginally
greater than the erosion rate of the stainless steel sample for the 5th cycle by a magnitude of 1 × 10−6 to 3 × 10−6. This phe-
nomenon might be due to the recycle use of the slurry mixture in each set of testing which might result in the sand particles becoming
more rounded after each test cycle.

Table 2
Characteristics of erosion at different particle sizes.
Particle size (μm) 50 80 150 350 450 700

E1 × 10−6 (kg/kg) 6.83 ± 0.21 12.56 ± 0.25 19.8 ± 0.2 16.35 ± 0.22 12.35 ± 0.26 8.42 ± 0.24
E2 × 10−15 (kg/impact) 1.1 ± 0.2 9.7 ± 0.4 83.9 ± 1.2 880.7 ± 1.4 1414 ± 1.8 3628 ± 1.3
No. particle impact x107 4423 ± 5 1080 ± 3 164 ± 6 13 ± 3 7 ± 0.4 2 ± 0.2
Kinetic energy × 10−8 J 7.1 ± 0.9 28.9 ± 1.1 190.9 ± 2 2425 ± 4 5153 ± 6 19,396 ± 9
Depth of Erosion (μm) 21 ± 2 88 ± 3 150 ± 5 210 ± 7 214 ± 4 225 ± 6
Width of Erosion (μm) 21.6 ± 2 19.4 ± 1.8 17.8 ± 1.4 15.5 ± 1.1 13.7 ± 1.3 11.8 ± 0.8
Surface roughness Ra(μm) 15.72 ± 0.4 28.56 ± 0.4 50.31 ± 0.6 81.03 ± 0.5 78.87 ± 0.9 76.91 ± 1.1

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25

Erosion rate (10-6 kg/kg)

20

15

10

0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800

Mean particle size (µm)

Fig. 1. Erosion rate E1 (kg/kg) with respect to particle sizes.

The relationship between the average erosion rate, E1 (kg/kg), and the mean sand particle diameter is shown in Fig. 1. It can be
observed that the average erosion rate increased initially with increasing sand particle size. The average erosion rate then reached a
maximum when sand particle diameter was close to 150 μm before declining with further increase in sand particle size. However,
research by Abouel-Kasem [26] pointed out that such a representation of the erosion rate might not be the best suitable for the
investigation of varying particle sizes. This is because for every set of testing, the volume concentration of sand in the water was kept
constant which implied that the total mass of sand that impinged on the sample surface was also constant. Although the total mass
and hence the total kinetic energy of the sand impinging on the sample surface is constant, sand particles with larger diameter will
have a higher kinetic energy than that of sand particles with a smaller diameter. Therefore, the number of particle impacts per cycle
of testing is not constant and varies accordingly to the mean particle size that is used for the testing. Test cycle with smaller sand
particles will then have more particle impacts as compared to test cycle with larger sand particles. He then proposed that it would be
more appropriate to understand the effect of particle impact energy on the erosion of the stainless steel sample. Hence, a suitable
erosion rate representation, E2, would then be to calculate the erosion rate as the weight loss of the stainless steel sample per particle
impact as expressed in Eq.(2).
The number of impact particles and the erosion rate representation E2 is presented in Table 2. In addition, the relation between
the new average erosion rate E2 and the different particle sizes is shown in Fig. 2. It can be observed from the graph that the new
erosion rate (i.e. mass loss per particle impact) decreased consistently with decreasing particle size although the slope of decrease was
gentler for particle sizes smaller than 200 μm.
In addition, an effort to correlate the relationship between erosion rate and kinetics energy was carried out. Wood [28] proposed
the following equation:

E2 = Ek 2nF( )C (3)

where, Ek is the particle kinetic energy (Ek = ½(mv2), m is the weight of particle and v the the flow velocity), n is a material constant,
F(α) is a functional relationship for the dependence of erosion rate on the impact angle, and C is a constant factor.
The kinetic energy of each particle size was estimated and tabulated in Table 2. It's seen that with the same flow velocity, bigger
particles eroded the stainless steel material faster than those of small particles.
Similar observations were also made in the case of steels [23,26]. In the previous finding, it is observed that the erosion rate

Fig. 2. Erosion rate E2 (kg/impact) with respect to particle sizes.

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Fig. 3. 3D surface profile of eroded samples.

generally decrease with decreasing particle size while noting a slight deviation in the rate of decrease for small particle sizes [26].
Thus, the similarity in the observations made serves to validate the experimental results of the erosion rate of SUS304 stainless steel
samples.
Therefore, by changing the representation of the erosion rate, it allows for more effective comparison of the erosion rate for
different particle sizes as it focuses on the difference in particle impact energy instead of considering only the total mass of sand
particles consumed per testing. With the validation, it can then be concluded that the experimental results would serve as a useful
guide for the prediction of the erosion rate of SUS304 stainless steel when subjected to sand particles of different sizes.

3.3. Surface profile

In an erosion study, the erosion rate is usually not uniform and tends to vary from location to location on the sample surface and
does not totally reflect the overall feature of the erosion of a material. Identifying the eroded surface profile is a crucial part of an
erosion study as well because it helps to provide information on the degree of erosion at different locations on the sample surface.
Therefore, the eroded SUS304 stainless steel samples were subjected to 3D surface characterization after the jet impingement tests so
as to examine the change in their surface profile, surface topography and the average surface roughness due to the erosion process.
Fig. 3 shows the representative surface profiles of eroded samples with respect to particle sizes. It's clearly observed the sub-
stantial changes in the morphology of wear scars when increasing the size of impacted particles. A visual reduction in the wear scar
diameter as well as the protruding island at the middle of the wear scar is obviously seen [24].
A further visual investigation on the surface profile by performing cross-section of the wear scars was carried out and the 3D cross
section profiles of eroded samples are shown in Fig. 4. It was observed that the protruding island in the middle of the wear scar with
“W” shape gradually reduced in height as the mean sand particle size increased, forming a wear scar with a ‘U' shape cross-section
(See Table 2). This clearly reveals the huge impact of particle size on the original particle trajectory due to the impact mechanics,
Stock number and the back pressure [1,10,29]. Table 2 also presents the depth of wear scar at different particle sizes. In general, the
depth of the wear scar increased with increasing particle size as shown in Fig. 5. This can be attributed to the fact that the increase in

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Fig. 4. 3D cross-section profile of eroded samples showing the transition from “W” to “U” shape.

250
Depth of wear scar (µm)

200

150

100

50

0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800

Mean particle size (µm)

Fig. 5. Depth of erosion with respect to particle sizes.

particle size results in the increase in each particle's impact energy (also see in Table 1). Therefore, larger particle would have a
greater capacity to cause deeper indentation which results in greater depth. However, the rate of increase in depth was lower as the
particle size increased and this is observed with the graph starting to show a stagnant behaviour after a particle size of 400 μm. This
can be attributed to the strain hardening of the stainless steel sample due to its ductility in nature. Therefore, any increase in particle
size after the strain hardening limit is reached would result in limited increase in the erosion depth [26].
In contrary to the depth, the erosion width of wear scar found to reduce with the increase in particle sizes (Table 2 and Fig. 6).
This can be attributed to the models of the particle trajectories [10,29]. Due to the jet spreading effect of the fluid flow and back
pressure, smaller particles which carry low kinetic energy tend to be swept further and impact the sample surface at locations further
away from the center of the wear scar. On the other hand, larger particles which carry high impact energy tend to impact near the

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22

Mean particle size (µm)

20

18

16

14

12

10
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800

Mean particle size (µm)

Fig. 6. Width of wear scar with respect to particle sizes.

90
80
Surface roughness (µm)

70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800

Mean particle size (µm)

Fig. 7. Surface roughness of sample with respect to particle size.

center of the impingement jet. As a result, smaller particles formed a wider wear scar of “W” shape while large particles formed a
narrower wear scar of “U” shape [23].
In addition, the average surface roughness inside the wear scar shows an increasing trend with increase in mean particle size even
though a slight drop in average surface roughness is observed beyond the particle size of 450 μm (Table 2 and Fig. 7). The increase in
average surface roughness with increase in mean particle size can be attributed to the fact that the increase in mean particle size,
which carries high impact energy, causes deeper cuttings on the sample surface which result in a rougher surface. This is further
justified above where the increase in mean particle size increases the depth of the wear scar [18]. Samples with a greater surface
roughness in the wear scar then possess a higher chance of material failure. Therefore, this relation between surface roughness in the
wear scar and the sand particle size also provides an insight into the severity of erosion of subsea T-joints and 90o bends.

3.4. Microstructural analysis

The eroded surface profile allows us to identify the shape, depth and width of the wear scar but it is not particularly useful in
providing information about the erosion mechanisms that took place on the sample surface during the erosion process. Therefore,
microstructural analysis was conducted using scanning electron microscope (SEM) and atomic force microscope (AFM) to identify the
surface morphology of the eroded samples. By studying the surface morphology, the erosion mechanisms that took place on the
eroded sample surface could then be identified.
Fig. 8 shows the representative micrographs of eroded stainless steel sample at 6 different locations from the center of wear scar at
the particle size of 150 μm. Previous work proposed that there are four types of erosion mechanism for ductile materials in general:
plastic deformation caused indentation, ploughing, cutting and sliding. Indentation is the action of a particle hitting the sample
surface at high impact angle and causes plastic deformation. Ploughing takes place when corner of an eroding particle indents deeply
into the sample surface and moves along the surface subsequently. Cutting takes place when an eroding particle impacts and cut the
sample surface at a low impact angle. Sliding then happens when the eroding particle slide on the sample surface and forms a sliding
crater [23,24].
In position 1, evidence of plastic deformation is shown by both indentations and ploughing. The indentations are identified by the
surface depression and can be accounted by the impacting of sand particles at high impact angle close to 90o. On the other hand,

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Cutting

Ploughing Ploughing

Indenting

1 2
Cutting Intersection

Cutting
Ploughing
Sliding

3 4
Cutting

Cutting and sliding

Sliding

5 6
Fig. 8. SEM micrographs showing different types of erosion at 150 μm particle.

small scale of ploughing was observed by soft edges in the lines and can be accounted by the impacting of angular sand particles that
indent deeply into the sample surface. This region is usually characterized by impacting particles with lower impact velocity and high
impact angle [11].
In position 2, more areas of ploughing were seen and this is due to sand particles impacting with higher impact velocity and high
impact angle. Additionally, cutting was also observed by the straight grooves identified. Such straight grooves are usually due to sand
particles impacting the sample surface with high velocity and low impact angle. The low impact angle can be accounted by the
change in particle trajectory due to the particles in this area interacting with the escaping particles from position 1. Therefore, this
area is usually characterized by impacting particles with higher impact velocity and low to high impact angle. Cutting and ploughing
are the dominant erosion mechanisms in this area [30].
In position 3, more straight grooves were observed which suggests cutting as the dominant erosion mechanism here. Small areas
of ploughing were also observed which suggests some particle impacts at high impact angle. This area is usually observed with the
maximum erosion and is believed to have the highest impact velocity and the highest number of impact particles due to the low static
pressure. Therefore, this area is usually characterized by impacting particles with high impact velocity and low impact angle [22].
In position 4, fewer impacts were observed with the surface having more straight grooves than soft edges. Cutting, which mostly

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Fig. 9. AFM images at the bottom (a) and the outer (b) of wear scar showing plastic deformation induced indentation, ploughing and micro cutting
phenomenon.

caused by the rebound particles from region 3, was observed to be the dominant erosion mechanism in this area. The decrease in
number of impacts can be due to the interactions between rebound particles from position 2 and 3 and the incoming particles.
Furthermore, an intersection was also observed that marks the separation of two different particle trajectories. One trajectory was
from the rebound particles from position 2 and 3 while the other trajectory was from the escaping particles from position 1 which are
usually parallel to the sample surface. Therefore, this area was characterized by impacting particles with lower impact velocity and
low impact angle [11].
In position 5, cutting erosion mechanism was observed by the huge amount of long straight grooves. Sliding was also observed
with minimal ploughing. Therefore, this area was dominated by cutting and sliding erosion mechanism and was characterized by
impacting particles with low impact velocity and low impact angle [26].
In position 6, a lesser number of impacts were observed. The cutting seems to be less severe given by the shorter straight grooves.
Sliding pattern was also observed as per position 5. Therefore, the erosion mechanism in this area was dominated by cutting and
sliding as well. This is due to the fact that erosion in this area is usually caused by escaping particles from position 1 which tends to
travel almost parallel to the sample surface. Therefore, this area is characterized by impacting particles with low impact velocity and
low impact angle. Additionally, minimal indenting was also observed and this can be due to the fact that rebounded particles impact
the surface at low impact velocity and high impact angle [11].
A closer look at erosion mechanism using atomic for microscopy at the bottom and outer of the wear scar is presented in Fig. 9. It
clearly reveals the plastic deformation induced indentation, ploughing and microcutting phenomenon. Similar erosion mechanisms
were observed for all the other sets of sample at different particle sizes. The only difference was in the extent of wear scar such as the
length and depth of the wear scar. Samples impacted with larger particle sizes tend to have smaller but deeper wear scar as compared
to samples impacted by smaller particle size.

4. Conclusions

The following conclusions can be drawn from the results of this study.

• Successful design and build up the in-house erosion test facility using peristaltic pump.
• For the investigation of varying mean particle sizes, an erosion rate expression of mass loss per particle impact would be a better
representation than a dimensionless erosion rate expression.
• The erosion rate (kg/impact), the depth of erosion and the surface roughness increased while the width of wear scar decreased
with the increasing of particle size.
• The shape of the wear scar changed from ‘W' to “U” shape when the abrasive particle size increased.
• Four types of erosion mechanisms were observed at different locations on the sample surface namely, plastic deformation induced
indentation, ploughing, cutting and sliding.

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