High strength steel sheet worn-out by continually sliding through corn (or soybean) etc. 1

[chrislaope]

Hi, ladies and gentlemen,

I am trying to figure out how much amount of thickness of a steel sheet will be worn-out by sliding through corn (or Soybean) under certain pressure in an unit time period. For example, a 12g HSS steel sheet withstand continual sliding through corn at 10psi pressure, how many fraction of an inch will be worn-out in a certain period of time (say 1000 hours).

Is there any book/artical which gives formula to claculate the worn-out amount with respect to relative movement material (say corn), exerted pressure (psi), and abrasion duration (hours)?

Thanks.

 

[racookpe1978]

It's kind of a stupid answer, but .. Have you gone to a farm-supply outfit (perhaps even a competitor's salesroom out in a the country) and just measure what they use?

Once you have some basic dimensions and thoughts, call three-four farmers using your own equipment/feeder/harvester/plow and ask to see their current device. Ask them what works, what they would like to see different, what they have seen fail.

I'm not so sure a local agricultural 7 engineering college (usually it is a "State College", an A&M university or the like) would be best, but the local state ag extension service is funded by your local governments to provide this kind of technical service.

 

[JStephen]

I've not seen information like that.
They do make abrasion-resistant plate just for that application. Depending on the circumstances, you may need structural steel with AR plate lining or covering it.
On the agricultural silos I've seen, they didn't generally have any extra allowances in construction for erosion. I think that's more of an issue with coal or mineral products. With conveying equipment or other applications, that may vary.

 

[boo1]

Or just design so the plate can be replaced

 

[dhengr]

Chrislaope:
I’ve never seen any data like that either. I’ll bet the wear might vary from field to field as a function on soil minerals (stalk hardness), dryness of the crop at time of harvest, etc., etc. If they had rain a few days before harvest and there was a bunch of splashed dirt up on the stalks, that would make the abrasion slightly worse. I’d take a bunch of thickness measurements and compare them to the number of hours on the machine, vs. original material type and thickness. Most of the typical manufacturing steels will have about the same wear resistance. You have to harden them to improve that. Any crop will do one heck of a job of polishing the steel, but the crops are much softer than the steel or many of the hard minerals as JStephen suggests. Talking about mils of wear per 1000 hours or psi may really be meaningless. It might be better to talk about average life in 1000's of hours, and let it go at that. Abrasion resistant steel may not be worth it, it’s expensive and hard to work with. And, the parts would not likely be replaced in kind. You might be better off studying the wear patterns and running a couple hard facing beads of weld on lines which protected/take most of that wear. Maybe weld a wear patch over some areas which can be easily cut off and replaced. Maybe change the shape of the part a little to better distribute the wear as a function of the shape of the crop stalk.

 

[DBronson]

chrislaope:

Why don't you contact these people. They've probably got the information you're looking for.

Link

Regards,

DB

 

[MikeHalloran]

I doubt that 12 gage anything will last long.

My friend Toby worked on grain chutes used to load ships, and told me they didn't bother to use flat headed plow bolts to retain the liners. They used something with a head more like a carriage bolt (think round head or button head), and after a month or so of service the heads were pretty nearly flat anyway.

I agree with the others; talk to farm equipment people, or, better, farmers.
Find some very used grain handling equipment and try to estimate how thick it was when it was new.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[IRstuff]

There are lots of hits for "wear resistant steel" like:

http://www.uni-leipzig.de/~iom/muehlleithen/2004/manova_04.pdf

http://www.journalamme.org/papers_vol37_2/37223.pdf

http://www.nickelinstitute.org/~/Me...lingCharacteristicsofStainlessSteel_9006_.pdf

http://www.ewp.rpi.edu/hartford/use...teel evaluated by the pin-on-disc testing.pdf

TTFN
faq731-376

Need help writing a question or understanding a reply? forum1529