An Efficient Bionic Anti-Erosion Functional Surface Inspired by Desert Scorpion Carapace

Abstract

To improve the particle erosion resistance of mechanical surfaces, a bionic coupling method inspired by the morphology and flexibility of desert scorpion (Androctonus australis) carapace was proposed in this study. The finite element method based on ANSYS/FLUENT was applied to examine the erosion resistance of a bionic V-shaped model. Subsequently, an experimental research was carried out to compare the particle erosion resistance performance of three types of specimens, namely, smooth, bionic V-shaped, and bionic V-shaped and flexibility coupling. Surface erosion microstructure was also examined under a stereoscopic microscope and a scanning electron microscope to characterize erosive damage. The anti-erosion property of the coupling and V-shaped specimens increased by approximately 74.7 and 57.4% compared to that of the smooth specimen in a 10-min test. The mechanism of particle erosion resistance is also discussed in detail. The particle impact marks that were distributed on the surfaces of both of the V-shaped and coupling specimens were regular.

KEY WORDS:

• Particle Erosion
• Bionic Coupling
• Scorpion
• Anti-Erosion Mechanism

FUNDING

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51325501, 51175220, 51205161, 51290292), Specialized Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education (Nos. 20100061110023, 20120061120051), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation on the 51th Grant Program (2012M511345), the Projects of Cooperation and Innovation to National Potential Oil and Gas for Production and Research (No. OSR-04-04), and the Youth Scientific Research Fund of Jilin Province (No. 20130522066).