Laboratory abrasive wear tests:: investigation of test methods and alloy correlation

When screening materials, laboratory abrasive wear testing is a quick and inexpensive way of obtaining large quantities on information on wear rates and wear mechanisms. Typical laboratory abrasive wear tests approximate two- and three-body abrasion. The Albany Research Center, however, uses a suite of four laboratory abrasion, gouging-abrasion, and impact-gouging abrasion wear tests to rank materials for wear applications in the mining and minerals processing industries. These tests, and the wear mechanisms they approximate, are: (1) dry-sand, rubber-wheel (three-body, low-stress abrasion); (2) pin-on-drum (two-body, high-stress abrasion); (3) jaw crusher thigh-stress gouging-abrasion); and (4) high-speed, impeller-tumbler (impact-abrasion). Subsequently, candidate materials can be ranked according to their performance for each of the wear tests. The abrasion, gouging-abrasion, and impact-abrasion test methods are described, highlighting the predominant wear mechanisms for each test. Data an a wide variety of irons and steels are presented with relative ranking of the materials according to the specific wear test. (C) 1999 Published by Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.