Wear & Corrosion

The primary objective of the Mining Wear & Corrosion Group and its main Mining Wear Materials (MWM) Program is to reduce the severe wear and corrosion damage- and related high costs and production losses- that occur in mining and mineral processing by:

• Identifying the most resistant/protective options for specific wear and wear corrosion modes
• Characterizing damage mechanisms and correlating test and service performance with condition, microstructure and constitution
• Providing data for selecting optimum wear and corrosion resistant materials for critical service
• Supporting and promoting the development of improved wear and corrosion resistant materials and protection systems
• Addressing chronic wear and corrosion problems and analyzing failures of wear components

Capabilities and activities on corrosion-related issues are being increased to address service conditions where synergistic wear and corrosion attack is taking place.

The Group also provides consultancy and evaluation support to other industries that suffer severe wear problems, including transportation, pulp and paper, manufacturing, civil engineering and waste management.

Our MWM Program

• Areas of Focus
• Clients

Main areas of Focus

• Abrasion and erosion resistance determination and continued growth of a comprehensive wear properties database to facilitate effective material selection and for quality assurance purposes
• Erosion, corrosion and erosion corrosion assessment of metallic and non-metallic materials for slurry pumping, processing and transportation systems
• Materials for resisting impact and gouging abrasion
• Optimization of chrome carbide and metal matrix composite hardfacing for different wear conditions
• Rolling contact abrasion studies for improving the life of tractor and shovel undercarriage components.
• High temperature sliding abrasion resistant materials

Clients

The main long-term project area involves a collaborative NRC/Mining Industry program with sponsoring international membership covering:

• The rapidly expanding and strategically important oil sands sector represented by the operating plants of Syncrude, Suncor, Albian Sands Energy and Canadian Natural Resources Limited (CNRL) and other projects by Imperial Oil / Esso Resources and Petro-Canada which are in the design stage. This industry is very severely affected by the extremely abrasive particulate solids in the ore body combined with harsh climatic operating conditions.
• Hard rock mining companies: Xstrata, ArcelorMittal, Mines Canada, and Alcoa World Alumina.
• Selected manufacturers of wear resistant materials and protection systems: Weir Mineral Systems, Kennametal, Deloro Stellite, Stoody Thermadyne, Metso, Willbros Canada, DuPont, Arctec Alloys, Trimay Wear Plate and Shaw Pipe Protection.

The MWM program also involves when appropriate, other research providers such as the Chemical and Materials Engineering Department at the University of Alberta, the Mining Engineering Department at the University of British Columbia and ARC. It is supported strongly by a multiplicity of cooperative companies and organizations that provide materials and services and participate in improved product development activities.

Consortium membership offers access to a wide wear testing capability and an extensive properties database, technical transfer opportunities and considerable service application experience. An annual fee for each of the sponsoring members creates a very high leveraging factor at a ratio of over 20:1. This allows them to access and influence a substantial research effort for a modest outlay.

In addition, fee-for-service contracts are carried out on wear-related issues for a diverse client base. This includes group members and manufacturers who cooperate on the collaborative program and also companies from other resource and manufacturing industries from large conglomerates exemplified by Dow Chemical Company to small and medium enterprises being assisted through NRC's Industrial Research Assistance Program.

For more information, please refer to our Mining Wear Materials Fact Sheet (Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader).

Related Information

Institutes:

• NRC Institute for Fuel Cell Innovation