Corrosion, Wear, Erosion, and Abrasion in Hydropower Plants by Thermal Spray Coatings

Hydropower plants, thermal power plants, offshore, chemical, food processing, oil sectors, etc., all have difficulties with erosion, abrasion, and corrosion regularly. These issues impact a variety of hydraulic equipment and pipeline circuit components (pipelines, elbows, reducers, separators, tees, and seals). One application where these three issues consistently arise is a hydropower plant. However, one of the main issues with Indian hydropower facilities is silt erosion in the hydro-turbines and their parts. Hard particles like quartz, feldspar, and other minerals may be found in Indian rivers. More than 50% of the quartz in the silt contributes to several issues with hydro-turbines, including sediment erosion, leaky flow, disruptions in secondary flow, etc. As a result, these issues have an impact on the hydro-power plant's overall performance. The numerous failures of the components placed in hydropower facilities' impulse and response turbines are discussed in this chapter. Additionally, this chapter provides information on different turbine materials and their characteristics. Based on silt characteristics, material properties, and flow phenomena in various hydro-turbines, several numerical models of erosion abrasion are addressed. Different thermal spraying methods for turbine materials are compared and contrasted. To regulate wear and safeguard hydro-turbines, this chapter reviews the literature on wear mechanisms, models, pilot plant loops or rigs/testers, and protective strategies.

Keywords: Erosion, Thermal spray coatings.