Study on Water Droplet Erosion Resistance by Blade Surface Microstructures Under High-Velocity Droplet Impact

This paper proposes a method based on blade surface microstructures to solve the problem of water droplet erosion(WDE)of turbine blades and improve the safety and stability of turbine operation. This method is devised based on the structural characteristics and WDE characteristics at the location where WDE occurs frequently. Such microstructures can achieve better effect in WDE prevention without affecting the performance of the blade. Following the WDE resistance principles and given structural economy, this paper designs five kinds of microstructures: grooved, striped, dimpled, protruded and serrated. Two kinds of blade materials are used to make standard test-pieces and five kinds of microstructural test-pieces. The WDE experiment was carried out in the WDE test system self-developed for this purpose. The average volume loss is proposed as a parameter to evaluate WDE resistance by different structural specimens, and the dimensionless WDE resistance performance parameters are used for comparison. It is found that the serrated microstructure has the best WDE resistance, with a WDE resistance coefficient 1.57 times that of a plane structure. Striped, grooved and dimpled microstructures can also improve the surface WDE resistance coefficient in varying degrees. The research data provided by this paper can be a reference for WDE resistance in the actual engineering field. © 2023 Xi'an Jiaotong University. All rights reserved.