The influence of the material stress state induced by internal and external forces on the erosion rate of pipelines has rarely been investigated in the literature. In order to fill this gap, using a tensile tester machine, a two–phase gas–solid particles jet erosion test was carried out considering a 316L stainless steel under different tensile stresses and different erosion angles. The results show that: 1) In the elastic range, with the increase of stress, the erosion rate manifests a rising trend; 2) In the metal plastic range, the increase of stress leads to a decrease of the erosion rate; 3) The erosion rate at a small erosion angle is more sensitive to the increment of stress. The present research demonstrates that the combined effect of erosion and material internal stress can contribute to determine the effective resistance of the vulnerable parts of piping systems (such as elbows or similar components). © This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.