A two stage mechanism of ductile erosion

Photographic and metallographic evidence has shown that erosion of ductile materials can occur in two stages. The first stage is when the impacting particle strikes the surface to produce an indentation and possibly remove a chip of metal. The second stage is when the particle breaks up and fragments are projected radially from the primary site. The fragments can produce secondary damage. The processes have been expressed numerically and the resulting estimates gave good correlation with experimental data. The influence of velocity, particle size and angle of impact can be explained by consideration of the relative contributions of the two stages under different conditions.