Cavitation erosion resistance of steels is important in many applications. The investigation of such resistance, under different conditions, should be very useful. Cavitation erosion tests were carried out on carbon steel AISI-1045 using an ultrasonic induced cavitation facility. Cavitation erosion pits and their effect on the localized corrosion were investigated in detail in three different corrosive media: distilled water, tap water, and 3% NaCl water. The results of the investigation using SEM indicated the formation of three types of pits on cavitating specimen surfaces: corrosion pits, erosion pits, and erosion-corrosion pits. The corrosion pits have different shapes, however, the lamellar structure is the dominant structure, and has a large size of about 100 μm. The erosion pits that were formed by the cavitation microjet impacts have sizes of a few micrometers. The erosion-corrosion pits were similar to the corrosion pits, except the erosion pits formed on the corrosion pit surface due to dissolution. The eroded surface removal was the largest in the case of saline water.

The ring areas formed around micropits in cavitation erosion experiments were investigated. The corrosion behavior and vibratory cavitation erosion tests of mild carbon steel in tap and distilled water were carried out. Thus, the ring areas were densely formed in tap water and scarcely formed in distilled water in cavitation tests. The ring areas formed around micropits in cavitation and free cavitation tests have a similar shape. Moreover, SEM examinations showed that the corrosion products spread within the ring areas. Thus, the ring areas formed around micropits are the result of corrosion effect and are not the result of thermal effects due to bubble collapse.

Electroless Nickel-Phosphorus coatings have had a lot of interest in various industries due to outstanding characteristics. Some of the highlighted characteristics of electroless Ni-P coatings are superior corrosion and wear resistance. But the effectiveness of electroless Ni-P coating in resisting cavitation damage is not studied so well and is not so clear. In the present investigation, electroless Ni-P coatings were prepared at various conditions including the type of bath, heat treatment temperature and plating solutions composition. The properties of electroless Ni-P coatings were characterized using X-ray diffraction technique (XRD), energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) optical microscope, and microhardness tester. The cavitation erosion tests were carried out to study the effect bath type, heat treatment temperature and plating solutions composition on the deposit coatings.The XRD results indicate that the as-deposit had crystalline structure for alkaline bath and amorphous structure for acid bath. Heat treatment of the coatings produced mixture of polycrystalline phases. The thickness of deposit films depend on the bath type and concentration and were the least for alkaline baths. Maximum hardness of heat treated samples was found to depend on the solution composition and occurs at temperature 300 °C and 400°C.The highest erosion resistance of the coatings was observed for the heat treated deposits at temperature of 650 °C, and comes to the fore the coatings formed in alkaline baths followed by that formed in acid baths. The best erosion resistance for deposits formed in alkaline baths is attributed to the small thickness and crystalline structure. The results showed also that the cavitation erosion resistance is independent on surface hardness.

In this paper a failure analysis of a screw shaft used in a co-rotating intermeshing twin-screw extruder was carried out; furthermore a detailed description for the repair procedure of the fractured part was presented. By means of the preliminary analyses of the failed shaft which includes a visual examination, appearance of fracture face, and photographic documentation of the fractured surfaces, and by summarizing and analyzing all relevant data it was possible to determine that the combination of torsion and bending forces was the cause of the failure. The shaft fractured with evidences of fatigue failure. Repairing of the fractured shaft was mainly performed by welding technique followed by suitable heat treatments and appropriate inspection methods. After repair process is completed, the extruder was put back into service, the recorded data during the trial and regular operations were satisfactory and within the design limits. Finally, in order to avoid future accidents and to prevent such problems in similar equipment, precautionary measures and recommendations were proposed.

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