Water droplet erosion (WDE) has received considerable attention in recent years. Different approaches have been proposed to understand WDE and find lasting solutions. Among them is understanding the interaction between the droplet impacts and the target surface especially at the erosion initiation stage. For this reason, this work studies the interactions between water droplets and different surface features to understand WDE. These surface features include flat smooth surface, grooved and porous samples. For the grooved samples, 1 mm and 0.5 mm depth are studied and their water droplet (WDE) erosion performance is evaluated. The 0.5 mm groove shows a longer incubation period than the flat reference sample. This work suggests that thin water film is formed in the groove which aids in dampening the impacts of subsequent water droplets. However, the maximum erosion rate is not affected by introducing these grooves. WDE performance of the porous samples is better than that of the solid material. This is because the porous structure dissipates the impact energy of the water droplets. Simulation results are in agreement with the experimental observations in this work. Furthermore, the simulation showed that the water droplet impacting patterns on different surface features are attributed to the effect of radial and axial airflows.
Water droplet erosion (WDE) has been a serious and persistent issue in the power generation industry. In gas turbines, WDE is caused by spraying ultra-fine droplets in order to cool the incoming air into the compressor. This leads to severe damage of the leading edge of the compressor blade. Also, different sections of the blades suffer varying degrees of damage. Here, the water droplets hit the rotating blades at different impact angles which could be attributable to the blade geometry and influence of airflow. Investigating this uneven distribution of water droplets and their trajectories due to airflow is paramount in understanding WDE. This work presents a methodology for understanding the effect of airflows on the water droplets in a high speed rotating disk rig where typical condition in real-life gas turbine is simulated. Droplet size of 460 µm and impact speed of 150, 200, and 250 m/s are employed experimentally using ink coated samples. Ansys Fluent is used to verify and analyze the experimental results at 250 m/s. Here, the effect of airflows on the water droplets trajectory during WDE tests is investigated.
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