The Solid Particle Erosion of Polycrystalline Diamond at High and Low Temperatures
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Polycrystalline diamond (PCD) is formed by sintering together micron sized diamond grits at high temperatures and pressures in the presence of a metal catalyst, usually cobalt. Combining the hardness of diamond with the toughness of a polycrystalline microstructure, a material is produced with properties very suited to drilling applications due to its high abrasion resistance.
Throughout the research presented in this thesis, solid particle erosion (SPE) has been used to simulate wear in freestanding PCD discs. The objective was to investigate how PCD responded to SPE over a range of conditions and at both ambient and high temperatures.
Experiments were performed on three monomodal grades of PCD with grain sizes ranging from 2 μm to 30 μm. The erosion rates of three erodents, SiO