In March 2021 KW Chile, a company within Welding Alloys Group supplied a Chevron-Coated Lifter for installation and testing in one of Compañía Manufacturera de Papeles y Cartones (CMPC) pulp & paper plants based in Laja, the Bio-Bio Region in Southern Chile.
Typically the customer’s lifter is fabricated from a 7inch mild steel pipe and lasts around 1 year in constant use in a debarking drum. Replacing the lifters each year was proving to be costly as each debarking drum contains about 1000 meters of lifter.
KW Chile recommended that the customer should test out Chevron-Coated Lifters. This proved to be the perfect solution for the customer as not only is it cost effective due to the process protecting the whole surface of the component, but it also has a much better resistance to the wear the component faces.
The lifters were coated using one of our Hardface wires, a chromium carbide based wire specially designed to be both heavy impact and abrasion resistant. Coating the lifters lined with the chevrons protects the lifter from excessive wear and stops the wood in the debarking drum from coming into contact with the base metal making it more effective than other solutions. This was proven as the lifters installed from KW Chile achieved a 100% increase in service life opposed to the original solution.
CMPC were so happy with the solution they began the process to replace all lifters with the Chevron-Coated Lifters manufactured by KW Chile. The success of the chevron-coated lifters is estimated to save CMPC around 200,000 EUR each year.
Following the success of the chevron-coated lifters KW Chile are gaining more interest from various other pulp and paper companies and plants and are implementing more trials.
Gallery
