FORM 08
Ceramic Wear Parts
Liners, guides, bushes and contact parts that outlast metal where surfaces abrade or gall.
View ceramic wear partsDUTY 02
Ceramic wear parts, liners and guides
Abrasion is a budget line, not a failure. Ceramic liners move that line down by changing what wears — and how often someone has to climb into the machine.
Wear is rarely dramatic. A chute liner thins, a guide rail develops a groove, a wire guide cuts a notch, and the machine keeps running until tolerance is lost or a part lets go. The cost is not the liner; it is the stop, the labour and the scrap produced in the meantime.
Ceramic wear parts are specified by where the material is actually being lost. A plate that sees sliding bed load needs a different grade from a nozzle that sees a high-velocity jet at an angle, and a guide that sees a wire under tension needs an edge that will not chip. Treating "wear" as one duty is how liners get over-specified in one place and under-specified in another.
Why ceramic
What changes when the part is ceramic
Loss per tonne, not per year
Alumina and zirconia remove far less material per tonne of throughput than mild or wear plate steel, which stretches the interval between rebuilds.
Lighter liners, less support
A ceramic tile of the same wear life weighs a fraction of a steel plate, so the structure behind it needs less reinforcement.
No work hardening to rely on
Ceramic does not depend on a work-hardened surface, so performance does not fall away when the duty changes or the liner is reversed.
Material fit
Which system suits this duty
Ratings follow the comparison published for the four systems. The grade is confirmed against the duty at quotation.
| Material | Choose it when |
|---|---|
| Silicon carbide | Erosive jets and combined wear with chemical attack — nozzles, cyclone internals. |
| Zirconia | Wear with impact, and where an edge must survive without chipping. |
| Alumina | Sliding bed load on plates and liners, in the widest range of shapes. |
| Silicon nitride | Wear parts that also carry load or see thermal cycling. |
Part forms
Forms supplied for this duty
Each form page carries the dimensional call-outs and ordering route for that shape.
FORM 04
Ceramic Plates
Flat plates and substrates where flatness, insulation and wear resistance decide the part.
View ceramic platesFORM 06
Ceramic Nozzles
Nozzles and orifice parts where an abrasive or corrosive stream must keep its shape.
View ceramic nozzlesFORM 05
Ceramic Rings
Ground rings and sealing elements for assemblies that must hold a bore or a face at temperature.
View ceramic ringsFORM 11
Ceramic Discs
Machined discs with concentric features for seats, wear faces and rotating duty.
View ceramic discsOn the drawing
What this duty needs pinned down
- Where the material is being lost: a drawing of the worn part is more useful than a drawing of a new one.
- Angle of impact, velocity and particle size for any nozzle or jet application.
- How the liner is fixed — adhesive, countersunk fasteners, or clamped — since fixing dictates the hole pattern and edge profile.
- Whether the part is a consumable on a schedule or expected to last the life of the machine.
Inspection
What gets checked
- Thickness at the points the drawing marks as wear-critical, not only at the ends.
- Edge quality on guides and nozzles, where a chip becomes a source of product contamination.
- Bore and orifice dimensions on nozzles, checked against the flow the customer is trying to hold.
Inspection points are agreed at quotation and recorded, so the first article and the tenth are judged the same way.
Questions
Asked about this duty
Can ceramic liners be bonded into an existing steel chute?
Yes, with an adhesive system chosen for the temperature and the movement of the steel behind it. The tile layout is normally designed so each piece is small enough to stay flat against a curved surface, and the joints are staggered rather than aligned.
Why do nozzles wear out faster than liners?
Velocity. Wear scales steeply with impact speed, so the same material that lasts years in a chute can be consumed in weeks in a jet. Nozzle life is normally improved by changing the grade or the approach angle before changing the thickness.
Is alumina or zirconia better for a guide rail?
Zirconia where the rail takes impact or the contact edge can chip; alumina where the contact is steady sliding and the widest shape range matters. The deciding question is usually what happens when the part does fail — a chip in the product stream or a smooth wear groove.
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Other pages in this catalogue
The same catalogue, filed by material and by shape.