Erosion wear experiments and simulation analysis on bionic anti-erosion sample

• DOI: 10.1007/s11431-014-5479-3
• Publication Date: 2014-02-17T16:06:38Z
• Authors: YuHang Zhang; He Huang; LuQuan Ren
• Keywords: Abrasion (mechanical); Sample (material); Particle (ecology)

The dorsal surface of a desert lizard has excellent particle erosion resistance. In this paper, a bio-inspired sample was designed and fabricated based on the biological characteristics of the dorsal skin of the desert lizard (Laudakin stoliczkana). The bionic sample consists of two materials with different characteristics, which form a two-layer composite structure. The particle erosion property and erosion wear mechanism of the bionic sample was studied by means of sandblast experiment and numerical simulation, respectively. The experimental results show that, in the stage with steady abrasion rate, the weight loss per unit time of the bionic sample is about 10% lesser than the control sample. The numerical simulation indicated that the two-layer structure of the bionic sample can efficiently absorb the normal stress, and dissipate the stress in the horizontal direction. Thus, the stress concentration on the sample surface is suppressed. The two-layer structure is contributed to the decentralizing of the stress distribution, and thus the occurrence probability of erosion damage can be decreased.