One example of abrasion protection in the mining field would be a washing plant that cleans coal. The pipes in an assembly such as this can be 48 inches in diameter, so there will be a high volume of liquid material running through them. This material will contain abrasives like rocks and fine coal and over time this will begin to wear the pipes down.
However, when these pipes are lined with an abrasion-resistant ceramic material, such as those offered by S&S Urethane, this creates an atmosphere for the piping assembly to be able to operate without any maintenance for years. According to S&S Urethane ceramic will outlast steel, inch for inch, anywhere between ten and 20 times over.
Carroll Technologies Group president Allen Haywood said: “If they didn’t have that proper abrasion protection through ceramics, those piping assemblies would last no time. We would be replacing the piping assembly prematurely.”
When a plant is down due to a blown pipe or a hole in a chute, often caused by abrasion, the producer’s losses can be so substantial they’re counted by the minute rather than the hour. Coal preparation modules can see their losses reach up to $3,300 per minute, which is why abrasion protection is so crucial. It can’t remove all risk of a shutdown, but it will reduce it dramatically.