Work hardened wear steel is a type of steel that becomes harder and more wear-resistant when subjected to mechanical stress. The work hardening process increases steel’s durability and longevity, making it an ideal wear resistant steel for applications involving heavy wear and impact, like mining equipment and construction machinery.
Applications of Work Hardened Wear Steel
Work hardened wear resistant steel is commonly used in various applications, including mining chutes, conveyors, grizzlies, screens, bucket lips, and components requiring both strength and ductility:
- Mining Equipment: Crusher jaws, hammers, and grinding mills
- Construction Machinery: Excavator buckets, bulldozer blades, and wear plates
- Railway: Track components and crossings
- Agricultural Equipment: Plowshares and tillage tools
The Main Differences between Work Hardened and AR Steel
Understanding the differences between work hardened wear steel and abrasion resistant (AR) steel allows for their optimal use in various applications. This knowledge can help users choose the right material for specific needs, maximizing efficiency and performance.
Composition and Process
- Work hardened wear resistant steel becomes harder through mechanical stress and deformation, enhancing its wear resistance. It usually contains high manganese steel.
- AR steel is designed to resist wear and abrasion from the start, with high carbon content and alloying elements like chromium and nickel. AR steel is heat-treated to achieve its hardness.
Application and Performance
- Work hardened wear steel is ideal for high-impact applications like crusher jaws and excavator buckets, where the wear resistant steel undergoes continuous deformation.
- AR steel is used in environments where constant abrasion occurs, such as dump truck liners, hoppers, and chutes, offering immediate high wear resistance without needing deformation.
The Benefits of Work Hardening Wear Steel
Work hardening wear steel has major benefits over common AR steels where high impact and abrasive wear are significant concerns:
- Increased Durability: As work hardened wear steel is exposed to impact and abrasion, its surface hardness increases while retaining a tough and ductile core. This makes the material extremely durable and resistant to wear and deformation.
- Improved Wear Resistance: The more wear resistant steel is impacted, the harder it becomes. With each hit, its hardness increases, enhancing its durability and performance.
- Cost-Effective: Although the initial cost of work hardened wear steel may be higher than other types of steel, its increased lifespan and reduced downtime provide long-term cost savings.
- High Toughness: Despite its high hardness on the surface, work hardened wear resistant steel maintains solid toughness and ductility, which means it can absorb high energy impacts without cracking.
- Self-Healing Properties: The unique characteristic of work hardened wear steel is its ability to “heal” itself through the work hardening process. As it undergoes plastic deformation, its surface hardness increases, effectively extending its useful life.
- Ease of Fabrication: Despite its toughness and wear resistance, work hardened wear steel can still be machined, welded, and fabricated using standard techniques, which makes wear resistant steel relatively easy to work with during the manufacturing process.
Exploring the Advantages of Titus Steel’s ENDURA and ENDURA DUAL Wear Resistant Steels
Titus Steel offers both ENDURA and ENDURA DUAL, which are unique work hardened wear resistant steels that handle wear eight times greater than mild steel. They start off as a relatively low hardness steel but “work harden” to a very high hardness steel. Because they are heat treated and quenched in oil rather than water, their microstructure is very homogeneous.
Think of dropping pick up sticks. They end up in a jumble. Now think of laying out the sticks in a neat row, one next to the other. That is exactly what ENDURA’s microstructure is like, offering limited tearing, shearing, and gouging.
ENDURA and ENDURA DUAL feature 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. When you try catching a baseball, you hold out your hand in a ridged position and as the ball crashes into it, it damages your hand. Now imagine letting you hand “give a little” as you catch the ball, similar to jumping on a trampoline. This offers a great reduction in the damage to your hand, it’s the Trip Effect of ENDURA – when rocks, gravel, and other abrasive materials crash into it – is why it outlasts all other wear steels.
To learn more about our wear resistant steel products, contact us today for more information and a quote.