Morphology and solid particle erosion wear behavior of red mud composite coatings

Abstract

In order to understand the tribological behavior of red mud composite coatings, the red mud and composite materials like fly ash, carbon and aluminum are being plasma sprayed. The coat-ings are investigated to know their morpho-logical behavior and erosion wear characteris-tics. Plasma spraying is done at different plasma arc current like 200, 250, 300 and 400 amperes. Torch input powers maintained as 6, 9, 12 and 16 KW. The substrates chose are rectangular in shape having a dimension of 50 mm × 25 mm × 2 mm. commercially available aluminum, copper, mild steel and stainless steel being used as substrate. Room temperature solid particle ero- sion trials are carried out using a compressed air blasting type rig under impact angles of 30°, 60° and 90°. The present investigation uses an erosion apparatus of Sand Blast type. The test is conducted as per ASTMG-76 standards. It is analyzed that initially the cumulative coating mass loss increases rapidly and later on be- comes almost stagnant. A transient regime in the erosion process exists, during which the incremental erosion rate decreases monotoni- cally down to a steady state erosion rate.