Falex Miller abrasivity tests in clay slurries

WHY

In the brick production industry, components used for the processing equipment (mixing, molding, extrusion) suffer from abrasive wear by the clay slurries. Since this clay differs from site to site, the abrasion damage can differ also.  With this method, we evaluate not only material wear resistance, but can also define the abrasivity of the clay.

HOW

Miller slurry abrasivity tests are performed according to ASTM G75, comparing the slurry abrasion-corrosion damage to materials from the production environment, where a clay slurry causes progressive wear.

The Miller test is appropriate to perform a repeatable and realistic wear process, consisting of the combination of abrasive particle wear and corrosive interactions in the presence of some water.  The test method has been traditionally used to evaluate both slurry abrasivity (Miller Number) or material resistance against slurry abrasivity (SAR number) for applications such as pumps, materials in dredging, mining, etc.

Thanks to its specific design, the test machine creates a repeatable environment between the materials and the slurry, resulting in highly repeatable wear tests.  The evolution of wear, and a convenient comparison of wear resistance of materials AND abrasivity of a slurry, can be measured in one series of experiments.

Clays are mixed with water and some additional ingredients to obtain a 'flowing' slurry, so that the contact is refreshed on each stroke.  The metal parts are cut directly from the processing equipment, to use the as-produced hardmetal coating as the test piece. 

  

RESULT 

• Adapted Miller slurry tests are used to compare the abrasiveness of clay slurry with sand slurry or other clays.
• There is some more variation in the wear results in clay, due to greater inhomogeneity of clay as a slurry.
• Baseline information when changing the tool materials : will other materials resist the clay wear better ?