ABSTRACT
Erosion, abrasion, and corrosion are the common problems in various industries, namely hydropower plants, thermal power plants, offshore, chemical, food processing, oil industries, etc. These problems affect a wide range of components of hydraulic machinery and pipeline circuit (pipelines, elbows, reducers, separators, tees, and seals). A hydropower plant is the application where these three problems occur unanimously. However, sediment erosion in the hydro-turbines and their components is a key challenge in the Indian hydropower plants. Indian rivers are a constituent of hard particles like quartz, feldspar, etc. The silt contains more than 50% of quartz content which causes several problems in hydro-turbines, such as sediment erosion, leakage flow, disturbances in secondary flow, etc. Thus, the overall performance of hydro-power plant affects due to these problems. This chapter presents the various failures in impulse and reaction turbines and their components installed at hydropower plants. This chapter also presents the details about various turbine materials and their properties. Various numerical models of erosion–abrasion based on silt properties, material properties, and flow phenomenon in different hydro-turbines are discussed. A comparative analysis of different thermal spraying techniques for turbine materials is done. This chapter provides a critical literature on wear mechanisms, models, pilot plant loops or rigs/testers, and protection techniques which can be helpful in controlling the wear and protection of hydro-turbines.
