Innovation Anthology #384:
Equipment used to mine the oil sands often has a short life. Some pieces have to be replaced after a single eight hour shift.
Dr. Gary Fisher is an advanced materials specialist with the MARIOS group at Alberta Innovates Technology Solutions.
His group is working with new coatings and overlays that can prolong the life of equipment up to ten times.
DR. GARY FISHER: The wear resistant material of choice for a piece of equipment that is critical is this tungsten carbide based overlay which essentially is a thick layer that you weld onto a surface of a piece of equipment. We’ve changed the composition of those overlays to suit different types of applications and those are the ones that are being trialed.
Improving how long a coating will last saves money, but as Dr. Fisher explains, that’s only half the battle.
DR. GARY FISHER: One of the big issues they have is when a piece of equipment breaks down and they didn’t plan for it. So if something fails every eight hours, that’s fine if you know it’s every eight hours. It’s when its just random. So if we don’t necessarily improve the life of something but we improve the consistency, that’s also a huge gain.
Field trials are now underway, and Dr. Fisher expects his results in about six months.
Thanks today to Alberta Innovates Technology Futures
FOR INNOVATION ANTHOLOGY
I’M CHERYL CROUCHER
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