FRONTIERS IN IMPACT EROSION MODELLING AND TESTING

The removal of material from solid surfaces due to the impingements of solid particles transported by a fluid, referred to as impact erosion, has been the subject of scientific research for long time due to the serious economic implications of this phenomenon. Owing to the fact that experiments are very costly and difficult-to-perform, since the last two decades there has been an increasingly use of numerical modelling based on Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) as an approach for impact erosion prediction. In this keynote, an overview of the state-of-the-art in impact erosion modelling and testing of impact erosion will be presented, with particular emphasis on the efforts made within our research group as well as on the open issues and challenges for future researchers.