Assessment of Erosion Wear on a Reducing Pipe in a Propulsion System Using the Eulerian-Lagrangian Method

The erosion wear on a forcing cone (FC), which is a reducing pipe structure in a barrel, is a transient complicated process that is caused by a high-speed dense propellant particle group. This process leads to the reduced propulsive performance and shortened useful life of a propulsion system. The accurate evaluation of this phenomenon is a formidable task. In this study, an effective evaluation model is developed to tackle this challenge, where the initial interior ballistic model is integrated into a computational fluid dynamics and discrete element method (CFD-DEM) coupling framework to reproduce the propellant gas source. The detailed particle interactions are factored into the model to enhance the precision. The results show that a gushing phenomenon exists when the particles move in the FC. The main interaction between the particles and the wall gradually changes from an impact interaction to a friction interaction. The erosion loss mass increases exponentially over time. Finally, the erosion distribution varies from an annular irregular distribution to a cloud-like distribution from the left side of the FC to the right side. The maximum erosion depth and the mass loss rate are positive with the FC’s taper angle. When the taper is ۱/۵, the mass loss can reach up to ۶۰ mg and the maximum erosion depth can reach ۱.۱ μm.

Keywords:

Erosion wear mechanisms , Reducing pipe structure , High-speed dense gas-solid flow , Computational fluid dynamics and discrete element method , Taper angle , Propulsion system