SSAB has launched its Hardox HiAce steel, engineered to outperform more conventional abrasion-resistant (AR) steels, stainless steels, and ceramics used in the most challenging and obtrusive settings.
The company claims Hardox HiAce delivers a combination of superior hardness and strength, resistance to corrosive wear, high performance at high temperatures, and workshop-friendly fabrication with no special infrastructure required.
Through rigorous testing and production methods, the steel has been manufactured to resist any acids, sulphates, ammonia, and salts which can accelerate wear and reduce service life.
Hardox HiAce steel is compatible in the most demanding of industries including waste collection, pulp and paper, wood handling, recycling, mining, agriculture, transportation, and quarrying.
Stainless steels perform well in purely corrosive environments, but when abrasion and impact are introduced, its lower hardness limits service life.
According to internal testing at SSAB, Hardox HiAce outperforms both stainless steel S304 and AR 400 steel in abrasive pH 4 conditions.
“The main reason Hardox HiAce outperforms stainless steel is its significantly higher hardness and dent resistance,” SSAB senior wear specialist Jonas Allebert said.
In the corrosive wear tests, Hardox HiAce achieved up to 20 per cent longer service life than stainless steel, no signs of pitting corrosion, and a more cost-efficient solution compared to stainless steel.
To further monitor and assess the performance of the steel, SSAB analysed a garbage truck operated by Swedish company Allmiljö over a six-year period, where Hardox HiAce flooring replaced stainless steel S304.
Over the course of six years and 106,000 km (65,865 miles), only 40 per cent wear was measured at the most exposed point, no pitting corrosion was observed, and floor integrity remained intact
“At this wear rate, the extended service life fully meets the operator’s requirements,” Allebert said.
Hardox HiAce has even been tested in the most extreme heat conditions.
At SSAB’s coke plant, after red-hot coke exits the coal furnaces the Oxelösund mill, it is water-cooled and discharged onto sliding ramps while still extremely hot, creating a challenging environment as the coke is mildly to moderately corrosive in addition to being abrasive.
When one of the ramps required new liner plates, Hardox HiAce was chosen for its combined resistance to abrasion, impact, corrosion, and heat. After months of operation, wear levels were even lower than anticipated.
Other high-temperature applications for Hardox HiAce in steel mills include quenching wagons, cooling beds, slag tippers and furnace inlet scrapers.
Additional high-temperature applications include dryer drums and lifter plates in asphalt plants, clinker cooler plates and liner plates in cement plants, ash-handling equipment and chain conveyors in power plants, foundry scrapers and screeners, and crusher liner plates and clinker hammers.
For more information, visit ssab.com
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