Ultrasonic cavitation erosion behaviour of plastically deformed textured stainless-steel surface

In this study, we utilized an innovative pathway to obtain exceptional resistance to the cavitation erosion-corrosion behavior by combining surface texturing with severe surface deformation. Severe surface deformation was carried out using stationary friction process (SFP) followed by micro-texturing through a micro-imprinting approach. The textured sample after processing (SFP+T) had erosion resistance that was 6-7 times greater than that of the as-cast sample under ultrasonic cavitation conditions. In addition, the SFP+T sample was able to sustain a similar trend in the erosion-corrosion medium as well. Furthermore, the flow field characteristics of textured and nontextured samples were investigated using numerical calculations in ANSYS-Fluent. The remarkable improvement in erosion-corrosion resistance was attributed to the finer grains and fluid flow distribution in the textured surface.