Erosion Estimation in a Pressure Relief Valve by Means of Particle Tracking Analysis

One of the effects of solid contaminant in hydraulic circuits is the erosion of internal parts. This is particularly important when the eroded parts are in the metering edge of valves, because this modifies the area function with unpredictable effects not only on efficiency, but also on functionality of the entire system. The aim of this paper is to investigate a possible alternative to long time-lasting and expensive experiments on erosion, using a lagrangian approach to particle tracking in a flow field whose variables are known. Two gaussian distributions of particles with mass are tracked for two metering edge openings, and are qualitatively compared with the results of an experimental investigation. The final part of the paper describes a first tentative approach to the use of data to estimate the amount of material eroded by impacting particles, presenting some details on flow velocity and angle in different sections of the valve related to data on the yeld characteristic of the impact. The last part is mainly qualitative, and only referable to massless particles. It is however a necessary preliminary step toward the solution of the complete problem, presently under development.