Dec 18 2013
The NanoSteel® Company, a leader in nano-structured steel materials design, today announced that its Super Hard Steel® (SHS) weld alloy has been selected by Trimay® Wear Plate Ltd. to provide wear protection within the steel piping of a concrete slick line at an underground mine in northern Canada.
NanoSteel's superior wear performance has been proven to provide a 30x wear rate improvement over the previous solution. Combined with Trimay's unique casing design, this project represents the second line of identical configuration for the customer and will be installed during the first quarter of 2014.
The slick line is a 600-meter (1,968-foot) vertical borehole system of 9-5/8 inch diameter casing used for delivering concrete to backfill mined out sections and reinforce rock walls so the next ore body segment can be mined safely. It consists of NanoSteel clad API L80 grade steel casing and Trimay's proprietary threaded joint system.
In its initial installation, thickness loss for the NanoSteel cladding was measured at 0.9 millimeters (0.035 inch), after delivering 120,000 cubic meters (288,000 tonnes) of concrete over 30 months of service. With this demonstrated wear rate of 320,000 tonnes delivered per millimeter of thickness loss, the coated pipe has provided a 30x improvement over the previous solution -- an uncoated API L80 bare casing with a wear rate of 10,500 tonnes per millimeter. Service life for the system is projected to achieve full "life of mine" duration, exceeding 19 years.
"The high hardness and toughness properties provided by our weld overlay result in the improved wear performance for this application," said Tom Santos, vice president and general manager of coatings. "Because of this, a slick line clad with our material eliminates several replacement cycles for a life of mine solution."
Trimay's Doug Fraser, general manager, added, "For this vertical slick line application, Trimay's casing design provides significant time and cost savings at installation. Compared to casing lines with welded flange connections, our threaded joint system connected by a zero-differential coupling can be fitted in the field more than 70x faster and allow a smaller diameter borehole to be drilled at a lower cost."
For project cost analysis, contact Trimay at 1-800-782-5445 or [email protected]. For Trimay wear casing product information, visit www.trimay.ca/Wear%20Pipe/Alloy%20Cladded%20Wear%20Pipe.html. For NanoSteel weld alloy for wear casing product information, visit www.nanosteelco.com/products/metallic-coatings/id-clad-wear-pipe.
About NanoSteel
NanoSteel is the world leader in proprietary nano-structured steel material designs. For more than a decade, NanoSteel has created progressive generations of iron-based alloys from surface coatings to foils to sheet steel and powder metals. For the oil & gas, mining and power industries, NanoSteel has successfully introduced commercial applications of metallic coatings to prolong service lifetime in the most extreme industrial environments. For the automotive industry, NanoSteel has achieved a significant breakthrough in the development of nano-structured sheet steel with exceptional strength and ductility. NanoSteel is a privately held company funded by lead shareholders EnerTech and Fairhaven Capital. For more information, visit www.nanosteelco.com or follow us on Twitter @NanoSteelCo.
About Trimay
Trimay, a manufacturer of wear resistant overlay plate and pipe products, provides cost effective solutions for customer wear issues with goals to extend part and component life, as well as engineered answers to reduce downtime. For more information, visit www.trimay.ca.