Slurry erosion behavior of hydro-turbine steel treated cryogenically at different soaking periods

Abstract The influence of deep cryogenic treatment on the erosive wear performance of Stainless Steel-316L (SS-316L) used in hydropower plants is studied. For this purpose, several SS-316L samples were held at deep cryogenic temperatures (−196 °C) for different soaking periods (12, 24, 36 h). The erosive wear tests were conducted on a self-fabricated slurry erosion test rig and the same was evaluated by weighing the cumulative mass loss (CML) of samples for every 30 min post erosion. From experimental analysis, it was found that the erosive wear was found to be minimum and the hardness reaches to maximum value after 24 h of the soaking period which could be attributed to the significant microstructural changes such as the transformation of γ -austenite phase into ( δ -ferrite+ α′ -martensite) along with precipitation of numerous carbides after deep cryogenic treatments.