Slurry wear behavior of zinc-based alloys: influence of some material and test parameters

This investigation pertains to the analysis of slurry wear behavior of a zinc-based alloy. The effects of material composition/microstructure, slurry composition and traversal distance and speed on the response of the alloy system have been studied. Sample rotation method was adopted for testing the samples. In some cases, unexpected wear response (from conventional understanding) was observed. For example, presence of a less corroding phase like Si particles in the alloy system caused inferior wear response while increasing traversal speed led to improved wear behavior (in the liquid-only medium). Further, hard sand particles suspended in the test environment offered superior wear characteristics despite their additional erosive and abrasive damage to the samples. In the tested range (20–60 wt%) of sand concentrations in the slurry medium, the wear rate increased initially with increasing sand concentration, attained the maximum (although less than the liquid-only medium) at 40% sand and then finally followed a reversal in the trend at a still higher sand concentration of 60%. Increasing traversal speed from 4.71 to 7.02 m/s led to inferior response while the silicon containing alloy performed better than the one without the element in general in liquid plus sand slurries. The wear rate increased with traversal distance initially, attained the maximum and then decreased once again at still larger distances. The sensitivity of the rate of increase/decrease in wear rate with distance became less in the presence of suspended sand particles in the medium (electrolyte). The observed wear response of the samples has been substantiated through specific characteristics of affected surfaces. The latter also helped to understand the operating material removal mechanisms.