Semiempirical erosion model of plastic materials in a stream of solid particles

The paper analyzes the Ruff–Wiederhorn hypothesis that several particles participate in one erosion event in a stream of solid particles for plastic materials. The proposed erosion model is based on two kinds of particles, primary and secondary, that differently participate in the erosion process. The primary particles create a crater with a ridge around it due to residual deformation and the secondary particles remove the displaced material. The number of secondary particles in an erosion event is determined by criterial generalization of experimental data. It is shown that the dependence of the erosion rate on the particle speed changes its power from 3 up to 2 at small and large impact speeds, respectively. The erosion rate increases with heating to a certain limit as the number of secondary particles decreases. Too hard particles, which promote high sound speeds, decrease the erosion rate as compared with softer particles because of reduction in contact time.