PE UHMW Flow Promotion Lining

(resistance to particle abrasion of selected plastics)

That generally cohesive bulk materials do not flow easily in chutes and hoppers. Changes in moisture and particle size affect the products flowability. These materials stick to the hopper walls and will negatively affect productivity. Traditional steel surfaces also become rough and corroded over time, compounding the problems and increasing the loss in productivity.
Whether it be brown coal, black coal, bauxite, mineral sands or other applications prone to material hang up, rat holing or bridging. There are many different formulations of UHMWPE sheet available from the different manufacturers. Some of these UHMWPE sheet are specifically designed for bulk materials handling for the purpose of reducing boundary friction in storage and transfer equipment. These UHMWPE grades are designed as flow promotion liners that exhibit superior surface release properties inmost applications and offer high sliding abrasion resistance.

HOPPER and SPOUT LINER

COPPER ORE CONCENTRATE HOPPER LINER

Wear in plastics
To completely understand the reason as to why UHWMPE is such a successful material in application, is to understand the importance of the UHMWPE coefficient of friction and the relationship of the friction angle. Comparisons of coefficient of friction of engineering materials Material Glass PE UHMW Stainless Steel Mild Steel Polyurethane Rubber Concrete Friction Angle 14 15 21 25 25 26 28 Coefficient of Friction 0.260 0.275 0.370 0.455 0.460 0.490 0.530

As with friction, wear in real materials is very difficult to predict because of the wide range of variables and it is therefore again only possible to give indicative values for the wear of a given plastic unless the specific application conditions have been tested. The chart below shows some typical values for a variety of plastics against dry steel

Wear and the Fluorocarbons

Most polymers have wear rates in the range 2 to 10 x 105 m2/N but the fluorocarbons generally have higher wear rates, a reflection of their generally lower hardness than comparative plastics Despite this the fluorocarbons have a unique range of properties, such as their extremely low coefficient of friction, that make them essential as additives for other plastics and for use as seals, gaskets and fittings in unloaded applications over a wide range of temperatures in aggressive environments. Friction and wear are complex subjects where the results depend highly on the loading application and conditions. Despite this, plastics have unique properties that allow them to be used in applications involving friction and wear.

*Kenneth G. Budinski @1997 Elsevier Science S.A. WEAR 203-204

resistance to particle abrasion of selected plastics

Twenty one plastics/ elastomer were subjected to a three body abrasion test (hardness, friction and scratch test) to try to understand the role of material properties in this type of abrasion. This study reconfirmed that UHMWPE and high shore A polyurethanes have better abrasion resistance than most other plastics and elastomers.
Fig 1. Schematic diagram of the ASTM G 65 dry sand rubber wheel abrasion test

Procedure
The dry sand rubber wheel tester uses a 228 mm diameter chlorobutyl rubber wheel (60shore A) as an abrader. The wheel is 12.7 mm wide and runs at a single speed, 20,9 rad/sec. The test sample are from 4 to 12.7 mm in thickness, 25 mm wide, and 76 mm long. The wear surfaces are the 25x76 mm2 faces. The loading force of the specimen against the wheel can be up to 140 N. The abrasive is 215 to 300m silica. The sand flow is in the range 300-400 g/min. The test procedure used in this study employed a 45 N force and a test duration of only 200 wheel revolutions (60 s). The test materials included the plastics and elastomers listed in table 1. These materials were selected because of their successful performance in other plant operations.

Table 1. Plastics, elastomers and metals selected for testing

Table 2. Friction coefficients (kinetic) of silica sand Sliding on test materials

Test result
The glass and carbon fiber reinforced plastics had the worst abrasion resistance of the reinforced materials. Cotton and linen reinforced material had better abrasion resistance than the glass reinforced materials. The worst wear on a non reinforced plastic was on polystyrene. There appeared to be a preferred hardness for polyurethane the top of the shore was more abrasion resistant than all of the test materials, but it was not significantly more abrasion resistant than a 90shore A polyurethane. This tests suggest that under certain conditions, some plastics and elastomers can have particle abrasion resistance comparable with that of hard steels. The explanation for their excellent abrasion resistance appears to be their ability to deform easily and their favorable friction characteristics against most other materials.

Abrasion models
The traditional tribological properties of friction and hardness have failed to correlate with the abrasion results. Some additional plastic abrasion models from the literature were reviewed (see table 2) for direction. One model that seemed to be quite reasonable was that proposed by Ratner at al., where the rate of material removal was said to be inversely proportional to the product of stress and strain at rupture.
Table 2. Some of the models proposed for the abrasive wear of plastics

Fig 2. Correlation wear volume and deformation factor

Wear data were plotted vs. the reciprocal of this energy term as proposed by Ratner. There was poor correlation. After manipulating the energy data in a variety of ways it was determined that the best correlation existed with a deformation factor that included the friction coefficient of the sand on the test material : W ~ (Se) Where w is the abrasion rate, is the friction coefficient of sand on the plastic surface, and Se is the area under the load/ deflection curve from the ball indent test. The lower the product of friction and deformation energy, the lower the abrasion. As shown in fig the correlation is much less than perfect (correlation of 0,73), but this correlation is certainly better than the correlation obtained with the hardness and scratch parameters. This relationship also seems reasonable. The deformation factor for elastomers is low and they have good abrasion resistance. The same can be said about the UHMWPE. The contribution of friction coefficient is thought to be that low friction can reduce wear because the abrasive (in three body abrasion) is less likely to dig in and form a plow mark or scratch. However, a high friction material such as PUR has good abrasion resistance because the abrasive grains tend to roll through the wear interface rather than become fixed on one member and plow a furrow. The correlation seemed plausible and further work with the other models was decided against.
Fig 3. Appearance of 60 diamond scratches in various test materials

Table 3. Wear volumes for plastic candidates in a modified ASTM G 65 abrasion test

Conclusions
1. PEUHMW and Polyurethane with a Shore A 90 durometer is good abrasion resistance to AFS 50-70 silica in a three body abrasion test 2. The hard, reinforced and filled engineering plastics had relatively poor abrasion resistance to silica sand in the three body test used in this study 3. The plastics that deform easily when acted on by loose abrasive particles (e,g. silica) are less likely to produce material removal by scratching/fracture