How wear occurs in pipes and why high-strength wear-resistant steel outperforms regular steel pipe in abrasive environments

In transportation systems that use pipes, wear occurs when hard particles or abrasive slurry particles slide along or are forced against the pipe walls. This action on the pipe wall can lead to loss of material and, in extreme cases, leakage or failure of the pipe.

Ordinary steel pipes simply cannot withstand a corrosive environment for more than a year or two. Although ordinary steel pipes have good strength and impact resistance, in such high-wear areas, their wear resistance is poor compared with high-strength wear-resistant pipes.

How about wear-resistant cast pipe? Steel pipes and tubes that are very hard throughout their wall thickness are often brittle. In conveying applications, pipes are constantly subject to motion due to pressure fluctuations. It has been found that for this type of piping system, the bulky and fragile cast pipe, which is often used in abrasive applications, is not a good choice.

When tubular wear parts are required in abrasive or harsh environment applications, wear steel pipes, such as Hardox® pipe in high strength steels, provide you with an easy-to-maintain alternative. Plus, you can use less steel while maintaining the strength you need

Lightweight, high-strength tubing and tubing extend service life in harsh environments
Want to extend the life of your equipment by 2x, 5x or 10x more? Do you need abrasion resistant steel pipes for ductile materials such as wet concrete, mud, soil, gravel, sand or wet coal ash? Or maybe you need a tubular part that can be used as a structural part for a bucket or other equipment. If so, then abter steel pipe should be a suitable steel pipe material that can take on the heavy duty.

Steel pipes and extreme wear challenges
When abrasive slurries are transported through pipes, their effects on the inner surfaces of the pipes can be devastating. This can cause serious problems for equipment in use, especially for piping systems used to transport slurries containing tailings or ore from mining operations. Such abrasive and erosive wear can also cause serious economic losses, lost production hours and expensive repairs.

The most troublesome thing is that the failure of steel pipes is often difficult to predict. So it is critical to minimize wear, reduce maintenance and extend the life of the steel pipe.