Submerged pulsating water jet erosion of ductile material

This article deals with the manifestations of erosion of statically acting concentrated multiple droplet impingements on materials over different lengths of time in order to assess the erosion evolution when the materials are submerged, as compared with the action of droplets on the materials under atmospheric conditions. The study aims to determine the extent of the erosive effects of droplets in underwater conditions. Experiments were conducted in a plastic pool in which the water level was varied from h = 80 to h = 120 mm to identify the effect of hydrostatic pressure at p120 = 0.1025 MPa and p80 = 0.1021 MPa. The results were compared with that of a control group of samples obtained under atmospheric air conditions. To observe the erosive damage evolution, 15 (n = 5) sites on the ductile materials EN AW-Al 99.5 and CW004A were exposed to high-intensity droplet impingement at defined exposure times. The exposure time varied from 0.125 s to 1.875 s, with increments of 0.125 s. As a droplet generator, an ultrasonic pulsating water jet with a frequency f = 20 kHz, a pressure p = 30 MPa and a nozzle diameter d = 0.4 mm was used to achieve the theoretical subsonic speed of the droplets. The results exceeded the assumptions regarding the possible attenuation of water pulses. It was found that under the theoretical speed of the jet vw = 225 m/s, the submerged condition causes attenuation in its erosive action. The incident area in the case of submerged treatment was more symmetrical. The erosion shift in term of prolonging incubation erosion stage was found to be a result of the increasing hydrostatic pressure. The results suggest that this method can also be used under submerged conditions for treatment or material drilling.