Belzona Celebrates One Year of Superior Surface Tolerant, Fast Curing Epoxy Composite Material
Since its inception in September 2020, Belzona 1818 has been blazing the trail in cutting-edge, abrasion-resistant technology across numerous different industries such as mining, metal processing, biomass, pulp and paper amongst others. Specially formulated for emergency patch repair applications, this extremely hard-wearing epoxy composite material is proving to be a real asset to maintenance teams all around the world.
What Has Been the Key to Belzona 1818’s Success?
With Belzona 1818, it’s impossible to pinpoint just one key advantage: it’s truly multi-faceted in terms of the benefits the epoxy system offers. It’s a Swiss Army knife of outstanding abrasion resistance and surface tolerance combined with a simple application method, not to mention an extremely fast cure time. As such, Belzona 1818 is proving to be an essential part of many maintenance engineers’ tool-kits.
Indeed, Belzona 1818 can be applied across many different application areas including: slurry pumps, screw conveyors, grit pumps, grinding mills, hoppers, turbo separators, chutes and pipes amongst other areas.
Belzona 1818 Under the Microscope
Listed below are some key benefits and performance properties of Belzona 1818:
Excellent Abrasion Resistance
- Belzona 1818 exhibits outstanding abrasion resistance and can withstand erosion up to temperatures of 80°C (176°F)
Surface Tolerant
- Belzona 1818 can be applied directly onto surfaces with poor surface preparation, manually prepared surfaces, oil contaminated surfaces and even wet surfaces
Fast Curing
- Belzona 818 is fast curing, ensuring a quick return to service. Depending on ambient temperatures, the product can experience full mechanical loading after two hours
Extensive Shelf Life
- With a three year shelf life, Belzona 1818 is a valuable asset to maintenance teams as this ensures that they have a large window in which to deploy the product
Distinctive Blue Colour
- The vivid blue serves as a good mixing indicator and provides contrast where an application is carried out in poorly lit conditions or against dark background surfaces where the repair area needs to be easily identifiable
Belzona 1818 in Action: Ash Silo and Housing Surfaces Achieve Outstanding Abrasion Resistance
The following two case studies detail how Belzona 1818 has been used to repair and protect both an ash silo as well as the housing from a truck vacuum material collection machine against severe abrasion.
Ash Silo Protected Against Abrasion with Emergency Epoxy Repair Composite
At a 750 megawatt power station in Australia, an ash silo was experiencing severe abrasion in the bottom part as well as the northern wall of the silo.
The silo is made of 3CR12 grade stainless steel at 8.0mm thick. Due to the substantial wear rate, (0.25mm of wall thickness loss per month) the Client required an urgent solution in order to protect the metal from further degradation. As there was no time to organise abrasive blasting of the substrate prior to application, it was essential that the repair material was surface tolerant.
Belzona 1818, the two-part epoxy system, was chosen to rebuild the damaged areas. Not only was this technology selected for the outstanding level of abrasion-resistance it would fortify the substrate with, but also for its fast curing and surface tolerant properties.
Indeed, this ensured that the silo could be reinstated online as quickly as possible, with minimal impact on the operations of the facility.
Housing Fortified and Protected Against Aggressive Abrasion
At a cement plant in Macedonia, the housing from a truck vacuum material collection machine was exhibiting signs of significant wear. This was caused by aggressive abrasion of various materials in the production process.
A repair solution was sought that would provide superior abrasion resistance to the housing area for the long term, whilst incurring minimum downtime during the application process. This was essential as the Client had allocated a very short amount of time to conduct the repair application.
A combination of Belzona 1111 (Super Metal), Belzona 1812 (Ceramic Carbide FP) and Belzona 1818 were specified. As these cold-curing systems can be applied without the need for specialist tools and cure quickly, this ensured that a fast application was achieved.
In addition, by deploying Belzona 1818, this ensured that the housing would remain protected against the effects of aggressive abrasion for the long term, thus fulfilling the Client’s requirements.
Mitigating Abrasive Wear Conditions with Hard-Wearing Epoxy Composite System
The aggressive nature of abrasive media causes significant wear and friction within extracting, handling and processing equipment utilised across many heavy industries. Although wear represents a minor portion of the operating expenses, it is uppermost in the minds of maintenance personnel, due to its recurring nature.
Because of this, those responsible for the purchase and replacement of wear consumables are always watchful for new abrasion protection materials, such as Belzona 1818, that will last longer, be easier to install, and are more cost effective than those currently in use.
In this way, Belzona 1818 is a real asset to maintenance teams across multiple industries; helping to simplify application processes and protect assets against abrasion for the long term.
Belzona 1818 to be Showcased at MINExpo 2021
Belzona will be attending MINExpo 2021 in Las Vegas from Monday 13th – Wednesday 15th September.
They will be exhibiting at booth 28326 where they will be demonstrating Belzona 1818, amongst other products that are designed to be deployed in the mining sector.
MINExpo is the world’s largest mining event. The show covers the entire industry exploration, mine development, open pit and underground mining, processing, safety, environmental improvement and more.
Want to learn more about Belzona 1818? Read Laura Bell’s fascinating blog post about Belzona 1818 being deployed in turbo separator applications.
Interested in purchasing Belzona’s repair composites and protective coatings?
Chloe Hirst, Senior Copywriter, Belzona Inc., Harrogate, UK.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chloe-hirst-2b1a79211/
