Numerical Simulation of Solid Particle Erosion of Epoxy by Overlapping Angular Particle Impacts

The solid particle erosion of polymers occurs in a wide variety of industries and has been extensively studied experimentally. However, numerical models capable of accurately simulating the associated material removal mechanisms and predicting erosion rate do not yet exist. In this paper, a coupled smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH)/finite element (FE) model was developed to simulate the erosion of an epoxy by successive overlapping impacts of angular 22 mu m, 97 mu m and 152 mu m silicon carbide particles at various angles of attack. The epoxy was modeled using a strain-rate-dependent elastic-plastic material model that fails at a critical plastic strain. It was found that, once the critical plastic strain was calibrated using a single experiment, the numerical model could predict both the length of the incubation period and the steady-state erosion rate to within 6% and 11%, respectively, of the measured values. It was found that fundamental material removal mechanisms such as cutting, ploughing and the accumulation of plastic deformation due to multiple overlapping impacts were all successfully simulated. Overall, it has been demonstrated that numerical models can be used to investigate the effect of influential parameters on the solid particle erosion of a polymer. This may have important implications for the development of effective methods to improve the erosion resistance of polymers.