Study on slurry erosion resistance and damage mechanism in cenosphere reinforced syntactic foams for light weight applications

Abstract

One of the biggest problems the maritime industries confront is the erosion of composite structures brought on by interaction with sludge and sea debris. In the current study, erosion behaviour of cenosphere reinforced syntactic foam is examined in relation to specimen rotation angle, slurry concentration, and rotational speed. Moulding method was used to create the specimens. Sea sand particles were used as the erodent material in experiments carried out in a slurry pot erosion test rig. The impact of particular parameters on erosion is examined using the Taguchi L9 array. A scanning electron microscope was used to analyse the morphology of the eroded surfaces in order to analyse the erosion behaviour. Maximum erosion was seen when the Cenosphere content is least in the syntactic foams and the erosion process may be classified as semi-ductile in nature. It has been found that Cenosphere content have a major impact on erosion behaviour. The erosion damage in the matrix diminishes as the volume % of cenospheres rises, indicating that cenospheres boost the material's resistance against erosion.

Keywords

• Cenosphere
• Syntactic foam
• Slurry erosion
• Taguchi
• Design of experiments