The wear of materials in an ash conditioner

Cuddon, Alan

The wear of materials in an ash conditioner

Master Thesis

1989

Publisher

University of Cape Town

Department

Centre for Materials Engineering

Faculty

Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment

Abstract

The abrasive nature of fly ash handled in large coal-fired power stations results in unacceptable material and maintenance costs in ash-water mixing plant. Wear testing has been carried out in situ using a variety of generic materials. A ranking order of wear performance has been established both as a function of material and operating costs, and it has been demonstrated that impressive cost savings can be effected by the use of ceramic-coated steel mixing blades. The performance of such composites has been found to be sensitive to the design and method of application. To optimise materials selection, a family of tungsten carbide-cobalt cermets together with a number of structural ceramics were tested in situ. The modes of wear can be related to material constitution. By ranking the performance of these candidate materials, value based materials selection and design for use can be applied.