Customer case

Hardox® 500 Tuf lives up to its promise in dumptruck beds

March 08, 2022 6 min read

A dumptruck with body made in Hardox® 500 Tuf, offloading tons of abrasive rocks.

Case details

Product Hardox® 500 Tuf

Country Sweden

Company SLP/ Rådmansö Shakt & Transport AB

Industry Trailers and body builders

Brand program Hardox^® In My Body

The results are in: Hardox® 500 Tuf in open-box dumptruck beds shows minimal wear after a life of being pummeled by over 40,000 tons of crushed rock.

Hardox^® 500 Tuf has been put to the test by Swedish hauler and contractor Rådmansö Schakt & Transport – and has passed with flying colors. The company’s main business of transporting crushed rock, gravel and sand for road building and infrastructure projects was growing. So, it was eager to test this latest grade of Hardox^® wear plate in its trailer and dumptruck beds exposed to heavy wear.

Rådmansö tested the latest Hardox^® 500 Tuf wear plate for more than a year in a tipper-trailer combination with a maximum load capacity of 38 metric tons (42 tons). By that time, the rig had logged 11,000 km (6,835 mi.). It has transported more than 40,000 tons (44,000 tons) of abrasive materials, mostly crushed granite rock from the company’s own quarry.

Mr. Lars Eriksson of the hauling company Rådmansö, standing in front of his blue trailers with beds made in Hardox® 500 Tuf steel.

“We usually run our trucks for eight years. It would be good if we didn’t have to repair the tipper body. From what I see, Hardox^®500 Tuf can make that happen,” says Lars ‘Knotan’ Eriksson, Rådmansö Schakt & Transport AB, Norrtälje, Sweden.

Case details

Product Hardox® 500 Tuf

Country Sweden

Company SLP/ Rådmansö Shakt & Transport AB

Industry Trailers and body builders

Brand program Hardox^® In My Body

Hardox^® steel makes the grade, as promised

Mika Stensson, SSAB’s technical development manager, visited Rådmansö to determine whether the steel performed as promised. All signs had pointed in the right direction, and the result exceeded his expectations.

When measuring the end section of the 6 mm (0.24″) bottom with an ultrasonic thickness probe, it showed wear of only around 5% after more than a year in operation. The dumptruck bed’s bottom and sides showed practically no dents or other signs of damage. Also impressive was the condition of the plate edge, which looked almost like new.

A technical manager from SSAB taking a wear reading of a dumptruck bed made in Hardox® 500 Tuf.

Mika Stensson from SSAB reads minimal wear of approximately 0.3 mm (0.012”) on the Hardox^® 500 Tuf bottom plate after more than a year of full operation.

Some rock-solid benefits of Hardox^® 500 Tuf:

Up to 2 times longer service life possible compared with Hardox^® 400
Highly dent and crack resistant when hit by sharp, heavy objects
Proven performance in freezing conditions (guaranteed impact energy of 27 J at ‑20°C/ 20 ft-lb at -4 °F)
Tight dimensional tolerances, clean and consistent for outstanding workshop reliability
Tough enough to perform as a structural material

Dump body manufactured by Hardox^® In My Body Member SLP

SLP is a successful truck body and trailer manufacturer located in Övertorneå in the far north of Sweden, just below the Arctic Circle. It is a licensed member of SSAB’s Hardox^® In My Body member program, which ensures that the company’s products are made according to strict requirements for material choice, design and production methods.

SLP manufactured its dumptruck and trailer bodies with the bottom plate in Hardox^® 500 Tuf. The full-length plates were bent by SSAB Shape and then shipped to SLP. The 6 mm (0.24″) bottom in Hardox^® 500 Tuf and 5 mm (0.2″) side plates in Hardox^® 450 were MIG-welded manually with overlapping seams. SLP worked as usual with the welding and machining needed to finalize the bodies. No pre-heating is necessary for Hardox^® 500 Tuf plates with a thickness of 16 mm (0.63″) or less.

An excavator loading the truck from Radmansö

“Our customers trust us to deliver top performing products. There simply isn’t any steel that can compete with Hardox®,”

says Anders Hellman, sales engineer at SLP.

Sales engineer Anders Hellman standing in front of a blue trailer with beds made in Hardox® 500 Tuf steel.

Tech talk on Hardox^® 500 Tuf

Hardox^® 500 Tuf is the latest upgrade in the Hardox^® range. It has an unusually narrow Brinell hardness window of 475-505 HBW. The guaranteed impact energy is 27 J at -20°C (20 ft-lb at -4 °F), at -40°C (-40 °F) the typical value is 45 J (33 ft-lb). Superior wear and dent resistance give extended service life and the ability to endure heavy impact. Hardox^® 500 Tuf is tough enough to perform as a structural material in heavy-duty dump bodies, containers and buckets, even in freezing conditions. Typical working conditions include the loading and unloading of heavy and sharp rocks in quarries and mines, handling large and heavy steel scrap, and in demolition when pieces of concrete with rebar are loaded or dropped into tippers. Based on sliding wear with granite, the estimated relative service life for Hardox^® 500 Tuf is 85-100% longer than for Hardox^® 400 according to WearCalc.

Showing the bottom plate of the truck made of hardox 500 Tuf

Where there’s wear, there’s Hardox^®

The lifetime of Zetterberg’s dumpers has increased by 40 percent

The increased abrasion resistance of Hardox^® 500 Tuf allows us to use a thinner plate and keep the same excellent service life. Not only that, thinner steel reduces the body weight, which allows for higher payload.”

Discover the beneﬁts of Hardox^® 500 Tuf in tippers

Hardox^® 500 Tuf makes tipper bodies, agricultural tippers and mining dump bodies lighter and more durable due to its unique combination of hardness and toughness.