Wear analysis of centrifugal slurry pump impellers

Purpose - To design and fabricate a wear testing rig for a water pump impeller and to select a parameter that can be used to determine the wear rates of slurry pump impeller. Design/methodology/approach - A wear equipment was designed and fabricated in this study that of main rotating shaft, supported by two ball bearings, and main electric motor bully mechanism for the rotational speed torque needed. An impeller made of cast iron was selected. The wear medium selected consists of solid particles and water. The tests were conducted by letting the impeller to rotate in slurry. The wear data collection are divided into impeller's weight loss, impeller's diameter loss, impeller blade's thickness loss, impeller's blade height loss and impeller's thickness change. Findings - The major type of wear that takes place in this experiment is erosion. The weight loss of the impeller is due to the material removal from the impeller as result of erosion wear. The diameter loss of the impeller is attributed to the impingement of solid particles on the surface area. The surface topography under the microscope indicates that the region near the center of impeller encounters less wear compared to the region at the rim of the impeller. Originality/value - From this study, among all the parameters studied, the height loss of impeller blades encounters the highest percentage of wear. This is useful for determining the running hours before the complete failure of the impeller for slurry and impeller types used in this study.