Water Droplet Erosion Tester

The "Water Droplet Erosion Tester" from Ducom simulates the damage of components in oil and gas (flow control equipment), power generation (steel pipes, wind turbines, and compressor blades), and aerospace (leading edge of aircraft) industries due to the presence of water drops.

"Water Droplet Erosion Tester was used to successfully deploy the hybrid PU coatings that protects the leading edge of the wind turbine blades"

When compared to solid particles, water droplets can be highly damaging because of high impact pressure that leads to lateral jetting and shear waves. The impact of continual water droplets on components can influence their performance efficiency, caused by the development of craters, high roughness, and through hole under severe conditions.

Ducom Water Droplet Erosion Tester with precision control of droplet velocity and droplet size. The operating parameters are in compliance with ASTM G73. 

The "Water Droplet Erosion Tester" from Ducom has the ability to reproduce and control an extensive range of operational parameters like impact frequency of 5–100 per second, droplet impact angle of 15° to 90°, and droplet velocity of 25–250 m/second. Such parameters depict the real operating conditions in power plant, wind turbine and aerospace industries.

Applications of the Water Droplet Erosion Tester

• Coatings employed in the aerospace sector to avoid damaging of aircraft structures and window materials
• Erosion-resistant coatings and tapes used in the leading edges of wind turbine blades
• Non-traditional texturing and machining method for materials that are hard to machine
• Hard coatings employed in choke valves for controlling flow in upstream oil and gas operations
• Erosion-resistant pipe materials used for transporting stream in power plants

Advantages

• Pressurized air blade: A 3-mbar pressurized air stream avoids water film accumulation on the test coupon, thus preventing the so-called “water cushioning effect”—one of the main factors that impair repeatability in these tests.
• Droplet impact frequency: The rotating disk that includes orifices can be made to function at various speeds to regulate the frequency of continual drop impacts at a specified location from 5 to 100 impacts every second. This provides the potential required for faster erosion testing.
• High-speed camera port: This feature enables a high-speed camera to be combined with the test rig for imaging droplets. The data that is gathered can be utilized to measure the droplet size and assess the velocity.
• X-Y-θ stage: The shiftable X-Y stage provides the flexibility of performing several tests by making use of a single test configuration to find out the overall erosion behavior (that is, steady-state erosion rate and incubation). The θ-module enables performing tests between 15° to 90° impingement, thus mapping the angle-dependent erosion behavior. This feature enhances productivity