Experimental and mathematical analysis of wear generation at bottom plate of mine excavator bucket

Abstract

Mine excavator buckets are made of austenitic manganese steel and subjected to wear while excavating ore, minerals and hard soil etc. Wear bars are used to reduce the wear in original bucket plate. A mathematical model based on several processes and design parameters has been developed to analyze the mechanism of wear generation of the bottom plate in the excavator bucket. An experimental setup has also been developed to study the wear in the excavator bucket. Different angular orientations of wear bars have been used to find out the minimum volume of wear on the bottom plate. It has been found that the wear bar with 90° orientation causes least wear. It has also been observed that the mathematical model has a good agreement with the experimental results.