When hard, abrasive rocks and minerals slide over the plate during unloading, this sliding wear mechanism causes material loss and deformation in the body.

Wear of steel can be described as three main categories; adhesion, abrasive wear and surface fatigue. For tipper bodies, sliding wear and abrasive impact wear dominates.

When the tipper is being loaded, the body is subjected to impact wear. Only a few large rocks will hit the tipper floor and cause impact wear; the remaining rocks will hit the loaded rocks and not directly the floor. This means that the majority of the wear in a tipper comes from sliding wear, which occurs when unloading the tipper.

Depending on the hardness of the plate relative to the hardness of the abrasive materials loaded, such as aggregate, rocks, metal scrap, etc., relative wear can be calculated using the Hardox® WearCalc software. The Hardox® WearCalc app is a powerful prediction tool that calculates wear and helps you optimize your choice of wear steel. It allows you to predict relative wear life and compare different wear solutions.

Hardox® WearCalc desktop app (left) and Hardox® WearCalc mobile app (right).