Refinement of the formula for assessing the wear rate of the

excavator teeth
Dmitrii U. Kritskii1, M. Pantelik2, Petr A. Pobegailo3, Irina V. Gadolina3*, L.Papic2,4
1
SUEK Krasnoyarsk, Krasnoyarsk, Russia
2
Faculty of Technical Sciences, Cacak, Serbia
3
IMASH RAS, Moscow, Russia
4
DQM-center, Prijevor, Serbia

*
gadolina@mail.ru, +79175046826
Abstract
On the basis of the experimental data obtained during the observation of the operational
reliability of mining excavators, the authors clarified the formula for assessing the abrasive wear
rate of bucket teeth of the rotary excavator under the conditions of a specific coal mining
complex in Siberia (Krasnoyarsk, Russia). Despite the fact that, according to the global trend, the
production of hydrocarbon carriers should be reduced, and in some countries, coal production
has already been stopped (Germany), the energy sector of many countries still at the great extend
is based on the use of coal. In this regard, improving the reliability of mining equipment is of
great practical interest.
To assess the reliability, to predict the time of replacement of the parts, to plan the
volume of production of spare parts, it is important for engineers to have the method for wear
rate estimation. Known since 1986 method for this estimation [1] was modified by the authors to
clarify the defining constant in the equation. Clarification was made on the basis of experimental
data, with using information from the literature and based on recommendations of the experts.
Real data about the reliability and wear rate were employed.
Kew words:excavator, reliability, abrasive wear rate
Relevance
One of the forms of physical aging of man-made objects is their wear. As it is known,
wear is a natural and inevitable process that accompanies any work of equipment and technical
systems. To assess the reliability, to predict the time of replacement of parts, to plan the volume
of production of spare parts, it is important for engineers to have methods for assessing wear.
The reliability of machines at the great extend is determinate by their ability to resist
some degrading processes. To name the two most influencing, it should be mentioned the fatigue
and the wear. Some aspects of the strength of excavator, which influence fatigue, particularly
concerning the strength of welded joins, are discussed in [2].
A typical object experiencing a strong impact of abrasive wear, are the machines for
open-cast mining, for example, rotary complexes of continuous operation. At the same time, one
of the most sensitive elements of rotor complexes to abrasive wear is the elements of the
working body, in particular, the teeth of the excavator. In [3] it was mentioned, that when the
teeth became blunted due to abrasive wear, it deteriorated the digging capacity and at the same
time reduced the excavator performance, which negatively affected the economic effects of
production. During the wear of the working bodies and separate parts of machines their size is
changing, as well as their shape and working condition, which naturally reduces the functional
quality, and ultimately – productivity. All this increases the likelihood of failure and accident. At
the same time, wear resistance at great extend forms the volume of costs for maintaining the
working condition of the machines during the planned life of their service. It is known that the
actual performance of dynamic vibrations of metal excavators during operation is directly
dependent on the oscillation frequency of the working body, in this case – the rotor wheel. The
original source of vibrations is the teeth of the buckets. Accordingly, vibration and increased
loads on the bucket occur due to changes in the angle of sharpening the tooth, which changes
during abrasive wear during operation.
To improve the reliability one should think of increasing the important complex
parameter of reliability, is availability factor AF. According to the standard:
AF=(Upstate time)/( Upstate time + Downstate time) (1)
It can be seen from the formula, that AF<1. The proximity of that value to unity is the
sign of good reliability performance. In figure 1 the planned and the actual availability factor for
the excavator SrC(K)-4000 in Siberia is presented. It can be seen, that the planned value hadn’t
been achieved. Moreover, some deterioration of the situation during the time might be noticed in
this scheme.
 Figure 1. Availabity factors for SrC(K)-4000 in Siberia

In paper [4] the method was developed to estimate the variability of AF. In figure 2 the
distribution of the AF for system of soil digging system of the bucket wheel rotor excavator SRs
1200 in Serbia, Kolubara, is shown. That particular system is the most vulnerable because of the
abrasive wear.

Figure 2. Distribution of experimental availability factor of the digging elements [4]

Looking at the figure 2, one can notice that the availability factor for the system of
digging (which is mostly depends on teeth wear) is far from being optimal and moreover has a
large scatter.
 All the facts, mentioned above, show for the need to consider the wear of the working
parts of excavator that is the abrasive wear.
The present work is devoted to the study of some issues related to the abrasive wear of
the elements of the working body of the rotor complexes of continuous action. The choice of the
object of study as the excavator SrC(K)-4000 is associated with its certain typical conditions for
the extraction of minerals by open method in the Russian Federation, and the concentration of
the efforts on the problem of abrasive wear is associated with the desire to reduce the significant
economic losses caused by the latter, and thus increase the reliability of mining machines. On the
other hand, the information about the wear rate of the SrC(K)-4000 teeth in working conditions
under the service inspection near Krasnojarsk allows refining the existing formula for estimating
this effect in the future.
Current status of the issue. Problem of the wear have long been known and various
aspects of the subject are outlined in hundreds of works. The most common and fast-flowing is
abrasive wear, in which the destruction of the surface layer of the parts is carried out by solid
particles in different states. Many works concentrate on the field of investigation of abrasive
wear. The base for this research is the works of many scientists in this field (Garkunov D. N.,
Davidenkov N. N., Drozdov Yu. N., Kragelsky I. V., Kostetsky B. I., Pronikov A. S., Rebinder
P. A., Khrushchev M. M., Chichinadze A.V., etc).
Directly to the question of abrasive wear of working bodies of excavators (and similar, in
terms of working bodies and/or processes) works devoted much less. Of the most significant
works to be noted: Baron L. I., Bogolyubov B. N. , Vetrov U.A., Vinogradov V. N., Grib V. V.,
Dombrovskaya I. K., Evdokimov Yu. A., Zimin A. I., Ikramov U., Kabashev R. A., Kovalchuk
V. A., Koch P. I., Leschiner V. B., L’vov P. N., Novikov I. V., Petrov I. V., Priscila J. P., Reish,
A. K. , Tenenbaum M.M., Tkachev V. N., Harach G. M., Yampolsky G. Ya. and many others.
However, despite all these numerous works performed in the field of knowledge of
abrasive wear, many practically important tasks have not yet found their complete solution.
Thus, the problem of assessing the wear rate of the elements of the working bodies of
excavators – bucket teeth and their elements is still relevant.
In the work [1], made more than thirty years ago, its author proposed an empirical
formula for assessing the wear rate of the bucket teeth of the excavator. However, due to the
large number of empirical coefficients, the values of which were not known to its author, it was
impossible to use it then and later on.
This work is devoted to the change of this negative situation.
 In this paper, a new option of the calculation formula based on the work [1] is presented.
To be more particular, on basis of experimental data from observations of the excavator in
operation, the proportionality coefficient in [1] was estimated.
In the paper [5] some aspects of the improving the wear characteristics through nitrition
are discussed. The experimental estimation of wear rate in that study was performed by a three-
cylinder-cone wear test.
The object of the study. Field experiment
As an object and as a source of useful information about the wear rate the excavator
SRs (K) -4000 was chosen. The choice of the object of study is associated with certain typical
conditions for the extraction of minerals by open method in the Russian Federation. The
information about the wear velocity of the excavator’s teeth was obtained during the exploitation
test by one of the authors. In figure 3 the excavator drawing is shown. This particular exemplar
was produced in Germany in 1984 and is been in service since them in the open coal field near
Krasnojark, Russia, in 1986. It is employed on varied soils and mostly together with coal loader
FR-132 and spreader ARck-8800. When the coal level is reached, the excavators EP-1250 come
to service. It downloads the coal into the rail-way cars.

Figure 3. General view of the excavator SRs (K) -4000.

The wear rate readings were taken during the exploitation by the service engineers. They
were recorder on the flow charts A3 format, like it was recommended in Toyota [6]. Later on
they were proceeded and the mean value was later substituted into the formula (3) for the
estimation of the coefficient.
Method
The expression for tooth longevity estimation had been proposed in [1]:
 UD
tH=
γ (2)
Here UD is allowable wear (usually is taken as a half of tooth length) and γ is a wear rate.
For γ the empirical formula was developed in [1]:
1
γ =( A ⋅ P ⋅ K p 0 ⋅ K vp0 ⋅f ⋅ s ⋅t P ⋅ K B ⋅ К abr ⋅ )⋅ К t 20 (3)
К wear
Where A - is proportionality coefficient; P - pressure in the working surface of the

tooth, [MPa];
K p 0 - coefficient which takes into account the influence of pressure change; K vp0 -

the coefficient which takes the influence of the frequency of pressure change; f - friction

coefficient; s - tooth friction path; t P - digging longevity; K B coefficient taking into

consideration the blunting of the tooth; К abr - soil abrasivity coefficient; K B coefficient taking
into consideration the blunting of the tooth; К abr - soil abrasivity coefficient; К wear - wear

resistance coefficient; К wear - wear resistance coefficient;

К t 20 - coefficient which takes into

consideration the environment temperature.

While looking to the formula it is clear, that for its successful application a lot of
experimental data is needed. Meanwhile, some of these data are known with the acceptable for
К
engineering design purposes, they are: ( P , f , s , t P , K B, К abr , К wear , t 20 ) [7-24, et al]. For the

part of parameters nowadays only possible intervals of existence are known (

K p 0 , K vp0 ). For the
parameter A no data are known today. The author of the book [Reish] honestly confessed about
that fact.
This speculation makes clear, that the formula (3) cannot be disposed in the engineering
design without some refinement. The investigation should be performed for estimating of this
value (at least, to learn about its order).
For this purpose, the formula has been rewritten in the form:
m k
γ = A⋅K 1⋅K 2= A⋅∏ K j⋅∏ K i
j =1 i =1 (4)
m
K 1 =∏ K j
where j=1 -is the first generalized coefficient, which depends on the operation mode of
К
the machine. It equals to the product of the some coefficients: ( f , К abr , К wear и t 20 );
k
K 2 =∏ K i
i =1 - is the second generalized coefficient, non-depending on the operation mode. It

also equals to the product of the other coefficients: ( P ,

K p 0 , K vp0 , s , t P , ).
 This new record allows, if necessary, to consider the separate behavior of groups of
empirical coefficients and more accurately take into account the environmental features of a
particular excavator.
Note that for the above-mentioned excavator just the intervals of the values of tooth wear
and as well as their extreme values of the coefficients of equation (3) are known.
Then, bearing in mind the performed experimental studies as a source of information, it is
possible to evaluate the probable values of the coefficient A according to the obvious ratio:
γ
А=
K 1⋅K 2 (5)

Table 1
The factors in coefficient K1
f К abr К wear К t 20

0,25 - 0,8 0,7 - 6,6 1,0 - 2,1 *

tr - the real temperature of the experiment

Table 2
The factors in coefficient K2
K p0 K vp0 s, м tP , s KB ** P , MPa

0,6 - 3 0,6 - 1,54 5 - 10 3600 1,088 - 1,132 0,1 - 2,0

**this parameter is identified using formula [1]: KB= 1+0,44 U, where U is the projection
of wear surface (normally from 0.2 to 0.3 m)

For the more detail consideration of the working conditions the modes of operation in
different operating soils were analyzed. Part of the above-given coefficients depends on the type
of soil (namely, the factors in Table 1). In order to more accurately take into account this fact for
the operating conditions of a particular excavator according to its operational reliability, a so-
called generalized unit that takes into account the heterogeneity of the use of the product had
been formed.
 Table 3 contains some characteristics of the operating conditions of the considered
excavator which are necessary for the formation of this generalized block. For this formulation
the experts’ assessments and the analysis of the known literature were used.

Table 3
The distribution of working time of the excavator according to the type of soils and some of their
characteristics

Share of Abrasivity
operation by Specific gravity Friction coefficient,
Soil type time , coefficient,
of soil , ρ , t/m3 К abr
рi f
Peat 0,15 0,8 … 1,2*** 0,25 0,7
Loams 0,25 2,04 0,30 1,66
Silt 0,1 1,8 … 2,0* 0,25 1,0
Siltstones 0,1 2,04 …2,15 0,50 1,0
Clay 0,15 2,03 0,35 1,2
Clay sandstones 0,25 2,4 0,30 6,6
Σр i=1 , 0

*** The exact value depends on humidity at great extent.

Note that the data were collected on the above coefficients for each of the modes (soils).
Further, for each mode, the formula (4) was used to determine the individual wear rate,
taking into account the data from tables. Since the accumulation of degradation damage from
wear occurs in all modes of operation, for the application of the above ratios, it is necessary to
estimate the average wear rate taking into account the information for the structure of the
generalized block according to the tables:
k
U∑ ¿ ∑i=1 γ i Tp i k
γ= = =∑ γ i p i ¿
T T i=1 (6)
In (6) γi is the wear rate in i-mode of operation, T is the total operating time; k is the
number of operating modes under consideration.
For the time T [h] known from the field experiment, taking into consideration (4) and (5)
the proportionality coefficient A are determined from the formulas and tables presented above.
The performed evaluation specified the average value: A= 8,1 X10-8 [1/(Pa*hour 2)], with
the proviso that γ has the dimension [m/hour].
 Conclusions and future plans
On the basis of the obtained experimental data of the exploitation of bucket wheel
excavator in the various mining conditions during long period of time and taking into account the
analysis references, the coefficient A in the expression, given in [1] for calculating the rate wear
was preliminary estimated.
This work will be continued: on the one hand from the point of view of further
specification of values of coefficient A. On the other hand, the other types of excavators will be
considered.
The application of the proposed formula is damped by the absence of the analysis of its
application limits. The data used, as well the reference data, vary significantly, so there is a need
for thorough analysis of the obtained results. This disquisition will be also continued.
The other important question for reliability is the monitoring the strength state of
machine, because not only the wear is responsible for its dependability [25].
The other interesting topic for investigations planned is the building the regression model
for the wear rate estimation by the factors of mechanical properties of the tools material. It will
allow analyzing the impact of varied materials on wear rate.

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