Construction of database on cavitation erosion and analyses of carbon steel data

Cavitation erosion data have been accumulated in our laboratory for about 30 years since 1970. The database was constructed as electronic data in Excel files. The data files are able to offer quick search in terms of the test material, test method and test conditions from among 859 data. Carbon steel data were analyzed, excluding stainless steels that exhibit high work hardening. Vibratory cavitation test results for different carbon steels, obtained with varying test conditions of frequency, amplitude and attachment of specimen, were converted analytically to obtain average erosion rates under assumed standardized conditions of a stationary specimen test with 1 mm standoff distance, and with frequency and amplitude as specified by ASTM G32. Since coefficients of variation were obtained in the range of 0.1-0.3, the standard deviation can be easily estimated for these steels. The erosion resistance was defined as the reciprocal value of the erosion rate, and it was normalized with the erosion resistance of SUS304 steel. The normalized erosion resistance is equal to 2.1E - 06 x HV2.4 (HV; Vickers hardness), and the correlation coefficient is 0.92. It was concluded that the erosion resistance of carbon steels can be estimated with high reliability from the material hardness. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.