Good Earth Wear Parts Streamline Production of Rock Dust

Freedom Materials Resources, a division of The Freedom Companies, produces coal mine rock dust at its West Frankfort, Ill., facility. The coal mine rock dust is utilized as a wet soil stabilizer for underground mining operations throughout the Midwest.

The production of the coal mine rock dust creates serious wear concerns in their mill used to crush the rock and stone into a fine powder. The mill equipment is exposed to high impact, constant abrasion and wear. This requires constant maintenance and frequent downtime resulting in lost production and added costs.

The mill produces the fine ground particles at a rate of about 10 tons per hour. The mechanism is comprised of the housing with removable wear plates on the inner diameter, a flat plate and a beater plate often referred to as a “wear plate with teeth.”
As the flat plate and beater plate rotate at about 2,200 rpm, small crushed rock is introduced into the unit. The crushing of the rock occurs during the rotation of the beater plate against the stationary wear plates on the inside of the outer shell. The clearance between the shell and the beater plate is adjusted to determine the final desired particle size.

Due to the excessive wear in this application, Freedom Material Resources had to replace the beater plate so frequently that the operation was unsustainable. A typical standard beater plate would be able to produce about 2,000 tons before it would lose its tolerance and need to be replaced.

Good Earth Tools, a specialty manufacturer of high performance tungsten carbide wear-resistant products, was contacted to try and resolve this issue. The removable wear plates in the housing as well as the teeth on the beater plate were lined with TruCarb solid tungsten carbide.

The initial results were extremely promising. At the outset, the TruCarb lined beater plate and housing plates produced roughly 36,000 tons with the customer expectations of at least 50,000 tons before replacement. Not only was the TruCarb liner able to make the operation sustainable but, according to the customer, quite profitable as well.

Good Earth Tools, www.goodearthtools.com 

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