Study On The Erosion Wear Behaviors Of The GFRP Impacted By Air Flow Containing Sands

Nowadays, polymer composites have been widely used in engineering structures. Erosion wear has become the main problem of their failure in many applications. Therefore, it is of great significance to make a fully understanding of the wear mechanism of the polymer materials in erosion conditions for improving the performance of polymer materials. Previously, the researches about erosion were mainly concentrated in metals, ceramics and so on, there are only a few of publications about the erosion of polymers. In view of this, in this thesis the glass fiber reinforced plastics (GFRP) were selected as the research materials, the erosion tests were carried out on an apparatus made by ourselves. The erosion behaviors of GFRP at different impact angles, different impact velocities, different sand particle sizes were systematically investigated, and the erosion wear mechanisms were also analyzed. It is hoped that our research results could provide a useful reference for improving the erosive wear properties of polymers.The main results are as follows:(1) Effects of the impact angle on the erosion rate of the GFRP. The results showed:the erosion rate of GFRP increased gradually as the impact angle going up from0°to75°; the maximum erosion rate occurred at75°. And the erosion rate decreased slowly as the angle increased from75°to90°. The failure mechanisms greatly depend on the angle between the fiber direction and the particle incident, the velocity component perpendicular to the fiber direction plays an important role in the erosion of fiber.(2) Effects of the impact velocity on the erosion rate of the GFRP. The results showed:the erosion rate increased with the speed, but not a simple linear relation. The erosion rate increased rapidly in the range of15m/s～20m/s, and then erosion rate increased slowly, which maybe contributed by the threshold effect and particle shape.(3) Effects of the particle size on the erosion rate of the GFRP. The results showed:the erosion rate decreased as the particle size increased by low impacted angle, the erosion rate was biggest as the size d=0.60mm. (4) The main erosion mechanisms of the GFRP impacted by air flow containing sands include cutting and fatigue peeling off. The cutting mainly happened at low impact angles, fatigue failure mainly happened at high impact angles. The main failure mechanisms are transverse cracks intersect action, solid particles embedded in the matrix to resist erosion failure and supporting effect of the glass fibers.