The Brinell value is used to characterize the hardness of the material. This is an important parameter for predicting the erosion rate because a softer material typically erodes faster than a harder material.
The Hardness value is available from the Results > Materials branch of the Design Study bar. Because hardness is an attribute that only applies to solid materials, hardness values specified on fluid parts are automatically assigned to the wetted wall surfaces of that fluid part. Surfaces that are shared between a fluid part and a solid part are assigned the hardness value assigned to the solid part.
There are three ways to select entities to assign hardness:
- If all solid parts or wall surfaces have the same hardness value, specify a hardness value on all parts. Right click on Results > Materials of the Design Study bar.
- If the model contains multiple materials, and there are several parts assigned to each material, specify a hardness value at the material level. Right click on a material name in Results > Materials of the Design Study bar.
- The most granular method is to specify hardness at the part level. This is most useful when the same fluid material is assigned to the several parts that have different wall hardness values at their surfaces. Right click on a part name in Results > Materials > material of the Design Study bar.
To assign the hardness value:
- Click Set material hardness....
- Enter the hardness value in the Set Hardness Value dialog.
- On the Mass dialog, click Enable/Update Erosion.
Note: Material Hardness applies only to solid parts that are meshed. Unmeshed solid part names are included in the Results branch with a strike-through, but only as a way to enable appearance modification. Hardness values applied to unmeshed parts are not used in the Erosion calculation.