Hammer premature wear in mineral crushing process

This paper presents the premature wear case of high chromium cast iron hammers used for barite rocks crushing. The failure investigations of worn hammer surfaces and examination of barite rocks have been conducted to identify the failure mechanisms. Damaged surfaces were investigated through optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) and the Vickers hardness test. Barite rocks are characterized by irregular shapes, angular edges and silicon amount. The hammer surface examination shows several damage features as cracking, grooving, metal cutting, carbide fracture, mechanosynthesis and chromium migration, which are responsible for a great material loss leading to short life service. The results have shown that the failure mechanism combines both impact wear and abrasive wear, interacting together.