Nous étudions les mécanismes d’endommagement dus à l’érosion pluie sur des matériaux massifs et sur des matériaux revêtus. Pour cela, un banc d’essais spécifique a permis de mener des recherches en laboratoire. Le principe de l’essai repose sur l’émission de jets à haute vitesse et à haute fréquence.L’étude des matériaux massifs met en évidence un mécanisme de propagation de fissures par fatigue qui aboutit à des pertes de matière. Ces mêmes endommagements ont été observés sur des échantillons usés en service. Il a été confirmé que la dureté augmente la résistance à l’érosion pluie des matériaux métalliques.L’étude des revêtements s’est focalisée sur 2 technologies, à savoir la pulvérisation cathodique magnétron, qui est un procédé de déposition phase vapeur, et la projection thermique sous flamme supersonique. Les revêtements obtenus par projection thermique (dont l’épaisseur était supérieure à 200 μm), se sont révélés moins résistants à cause d’un manque d’adhérence ou de la présence de défauts au sein du matériau. Les revêtements obtenus par PVD (dont l’épaisseur était inférieure à 30 μm) ont permis d’obtenir des gains de résistance significatifs. Dans tous les cas, quel que soit la technologie utilisée, l’adhérence du revêtement s’est révélé être un paramètre critique en ce qui concerne la résistance de la surface à l’érosion pluie. Enfin, une simulation numérique en dynamique a permis d’étudier les champs de contraintes dans des feuillets métalliques, et ce, en faisant varier leurs épaisseurs, les matériaux qui les composent, et la vitesse d’impact. Les résultats de la simulation tendent à prouver que la propagation des ondes de contraintes dans le matériau peut entrainer des phénomènes de sur-contraintes dans les feuillets les plus fins à cause de la réflexion des ondes sur la face antérieure de la plaque. / The study deals with the rain erosion mechanisms of both bulk and coated materials. For that purpose, a specific test bench has been built, enabling laboratory research. The principle of the test is based on the emission of high-speed water jets at high frequency.Studying bulk materials confirmed the positive influence of hardness on rain erosion resistance for metallic materials. The mechanism found responsible for material losses is the propagation of fatigue cracks. These fatigue damages were also observed on in-service worn out samples.The analysis of coated materials focused on two covering technologies, namely physical vapor magnetron sputtering deposition (Magnetron PVD) and high velocity oxy-fuel coating spraying (HVOF). The coatings obtained by HVOF (> 200μm) weren’t resistant enough due to lack of adhesion and/or due to specific defects within the material. The coatings obtained by PVD (< 30μm) have yielded to significant improvements on the surface resistance. However, the adhesion of the coating appeared as a critical parameter for the rain erosion resistance.Finally, a numerical simulation has been designed to study dynamic stress fields in metal sheets. Moreover the model allowed the sheets thicknesses, the materials, and the speed of impact to vary. The simulation showed that the propagation of stress waves in the material may cause over-stresses phenomena in the thinner sheets, due to the reflection waves on the back side of the plate.

Impact of rain drops at relatively high velocities, which is known as rain erosion, causes severe damages on various materials. Every material can withstand the rain erosion up to a specific impact velocity. However, this damage is critical for optical windows which are very important components for Electro-Optical (EO) systems such as thermal camera. Even a small scratch may affect the transmission capability of the optical window adversely and leads to some functional problems in the device due to insufficient transmitted data. Since it has a vital effect on the EO systems, the rain erosion is needed to be investigated on the special optical windows, particularly for determining the velocity that a damage initiates. In this study, the rain erosion is investigated on germanium which is a kind of optical window, by means of numerical simulations in LS-DYNA. Damage Threshold Velocity (DTV) is examined for two different water shapes (which are spherical water drop and water jet) within a velocity range between 100 and 250 m/s. Both single and multiple impact cases are considered for both water shapes up to ten consecutive collisions. By using the results, the &ldquo / DTV versus number of impact curves&rdquo / are obtained in order to understand the amount of damage with respect to both single and multiple impacts. Results are compared with both literature and the experimental data within the scope of DTV and shape of the damage. In the numerical simulations, ALE (Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian) method is used for modelling water. &ldquo / JOHNSON-HOLMQUIST-CERAMICS (JH-2)&rdquo / which is recommended for both ceramics and glass applications is used as the material model for Germanium. JH-2 is a complete material model which contains damage effects, failure criteria, and Equation of State (EOS) all together. Among the material models available in the library of LS-DYNA, &ldquo / MAT-NULL + EOS-GRUNEISEN&rdquo / is used for water.