The finite element modeling of the impacting process of hard particles on pump components

Shield pumps which transport a variety of complex media are widely used in chemical industry, mineral industry, and other fields. However, the hard particles in the media erode the flow passage in the shield pump, seriously affecting the service life of the pump. Therefore, it is important to study the erosion process in the flow passage to extend the service life of the pump. This erosion process in the shield pump can be investigated by experiments, but it is difficult for the current experimental method to copy the real industrial service environment of impellers. For example, the environment temperature and speed range are found difficult to be reached by the current experimental method. Comparatively, the simulation by finite element method can overcome the above deficiency. In this article, the ANASYS software is used to simulate the erosion process in shield pump flow passage due to hard particles. Specifically, the structural static analysis module is used to build the model of thermal barrier coating components and hard particle components. Then the variation law of stress, strain, and material deformation of the flow passage components under concentrated force is obtained. Second, the extended finite element method is used to study the crack propagation caused by the erosion process. A linear elastic-linear softening constitutive model is established to simulate the stress variation during the crack propagation and material removal under the continuous erosion from hard particles. The proposed law regarding stress variation and crack propagation in the erosion process in this study contributes to theoretical support for damage detection and service life extension of shield pumps.