Wear Resistant Steels were developed to retard or slow down the destruction of mild steels, providing longer life, less downtime and maintenance of equipment that experiences wear from impact and/or sliding abrasion. For the most part, this was and still is accomplished by making the steels harder. But the harder the steel, the more brittle it becomes and it is less easy to machine or form into parts, shoots, conveyors, buckets, screens etc.
The challenge was to make a Wear Steel that is very hard and can resist impact and abrasion, but can also be machined, formed and easily welded. So, the metallurgists at the French company, Industeel, set out to do just that. After 7 years of experiments in chemistry and various heat treatments, they developed and patented a steel known as Creusabro, and trademarked in North America as ENDURA.
ENDURA is a unique steel that is 8 times more wear resistant than mild steel. It starts off as a relatively low hardness steel but “WORK HARDENS” with repeated, transforming into a very high hardness steel.
Why is ENDURA Steel So Wear-Resistant?
ENDURA steel derives much of its hardness due to the Heat treatment and quenching in oil rather than water, This makes its microstructure very homogeneous. Think of dropping pick-up sticks. The sticks are a jumble. Now, imagine the sticks are laid down together in a row beside each other. That is ENDURA’s homogeneous microstructure which, limits tearing, shearing, and gouging.
Finally, the people at Industeel developed a revolutionary metallurgical phenomenon known as the TRIP EFFECT (Transformation Induced by Plasticity) which is achieved by the spontaneous rearrangement of metallic atoms under stress. Think of catching a baseball. You hold your hand in a rigid position and the ball crashes into and damages your hand. Now imagine letting your hand “give a little” as you catch the ball, like a trampoline. This results in a great reduction in the damage to your hand. This is the TRIP EFFECT of ENDURA when rocks, gravel and other abrasive materials smash and crash into it, and it is why it out lasts all of the lesser wear resistant steels.
ENDURA… a unique steel, easy to process, homogeneous micro structure, TRIP effect and work hardening to a very high level when in service. If you developed it, wouldn’t you patent it?
If you’d like to learn more about the ENDURA steel, or if you have a high-wear application ideal for ENDURA steel, feel free to contact us to learn more.