The Evolution Of Abrasion Resistant Plate In Mining

By Ann Jordan


Mining and earth moving has happened to yield a lot of the most basic needs of man for several thousands of years. Moving earth crusts requires not only ground engagement implements but tooling that will allow workers to survive through the hostile environment underground. Improving the current approaches and materials in order to reduce downtime as well as component replacements has always been a struggle. One component known to have several applications in the field is the abrasion resistant plate.

Abrasion resistant plates may be made of varying types of materials. One of the materials on the far ends in terms of toughness is ceramics. They are usually able to provide great resistance against abrasion though, but still, they have very limited application in terms of heavy or even moderate impact. In addition, they are not weldable.

Cladded types of wear plates have also been becoming increasingly popular. These have somewhat similar characteristics to those made of ceramics, especially in the aspect of resistance. There is a difference in terms of weldability though, since cladded types are more like mild steel when welded. They also work well even with moderate impact, prompting them to have more extended component life.

Construction steels were the very first sources of wear plates. However, they were only able to afford marginal wear resistance. They are not only low on carbon, which is a principal steel hardener, but also use very little alloy. The lack of alloy has resulted to steels that are low on hardness beneath surfaces. Only the surface of materials were able to fully resist abrasive environments since the inner cores were fairly softer.

Lack in alloy can prevent steels from thoroughly hardening. It also can yield steels that are not even ductile enough when hardened. Such will prevent them from being properly shaped and formed to be used in other applications. In addition, it became evident that non-ductile steels have very limited applications.

Many metallurgists have still tried to judiciously find ways for how they can battle all inadequacies in constructing steels though. Most have considered adding in alloying elements that enhance steel hardness. Special methods were utilized in the control of non-metallic shape, volume and size so impact and ductility will be improved. The addition of titanium has also been considered to induce formation of carbonitrides, yielding quality steels.

Although thoroughly hardened steels had a lot of applications that involve moderate impact, they still were not good enough for situations where low impact but severe abrasion is involved. Professionals decided that they needed a new product. They needed weldability and the resistance of high chromium casting.

The chemistries of chromium white iron produced wires and electrodes that are hardfacing. All that was left to do was clad surface areas of plates made from mild steel with these consumables. The end products are what they then referred to as cladded wear plates.

There are two essential characteristics to combat wear. These are hardness and microstructure. Hardness is rendered the direct result of steel microstructure. It is easy to measure but is most of the time used erroneously as criteria for resistance. An abrasion resistant plate may actually be equal in hardness with another but this does not mean they have the same resistance.




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