Erosion resistance of epoxy based composites

G. CAPIEL; F. ARROSIO; M. E. PENOFF; V.A. ALVAREZ; P.E. MONTEMARTINI

Congreso; VI International Conference on Science and Technology of Composite Materials, COMAT 2015; 2015

Composite materials are widely used in replacement for metals in many applications, such as automotive, aero naval and aerospace industries, among others. In the energy production operations, composites appear in the wind turbine blades for the eolic energy generation and in the pipelines of the petroleum refining. Nevertheless, it is widely recognized that these materials have a poor erosion resistance against operational requirements of industrial environment. Specifically pipelines can suffer from erosion when a high-speed fluid is transported. Moreover, multiphase fluids, as sand slurries common in petroleum refining, expose the pipe line wall to severe conditions in which they may be subjected to erosion. In this work, a jet impingemet system was developed with the aim of studying the effect of an abrasive flow against an epoxy based composite commonly used in the petroleum refining. Surface and bulk mechanical properties were measured looking for a correlation with the erosion resistance.