Assessing Wear Performance of Two High-carbon Hadfield Steels Through Field Tests in the Mining Industry

Hadfield steels are widely used in the production of liners for rock crushing applications due to their good wear resistance and high toughness. Because of the high replacement frequency and cost of these liners, improvements in the properties of Hadfield steels may represent a great economic benefit for mining operators. Therefore, correctly assessing wear performance is a relevant matter in the research and development activities regarding Hadfield steels. However, conventional laboratory tests may not accurately mimic the conditions of impact and gouging abrasion occurring in crushing applications. Field tests may represent a complementary source of information particularly useful in the optimization of Hadfield steels. In this work, the wear performance of two Hadfield steels was investigated through field testing. Their characteristics included high carbon content and two different levels of manganese content. Two sites were chosen for the assessment: a pebble crushing plant and an aggregate plant. The first site presented very hard material and compression crushing conditions, whereas the second site presented impact crushing conditions. The use of field tests allowed comparing wear ratios between both steels and it also permitted to identify critical issues constraining steels performance, such as microstructure embrittlement. Despite some limitations, the results from the field tests demonstrated that better wear performance was associated with higher manganese content.