#hardfacing

An excavator bucket is a connecting part for heavy equipment machinery which is designed and manufactured to be used for work in site excavation, mining and construction sites. Wear associated failure of machinery components number as one of the chief reasons for unproductive working of machines in a diversity of engineering applications. Associated with wear resistant applications in the field, in the last decade hardfacing become an issue of extreme development. Hardfacing is the method of welding consumable electrode having high wear resistance on the bucket teeth. Using DC arc welding process layers of hardfaced material is deposited on the bare bucket teeth. Field trail was conducted for 10 hours in the field. Weight measurement was done before installing bucket teeth on JCB and after the field trail. The difference in weight is analyzed to measure the wear rate of hardfacing material i.e. HAB 90 and bare tooth. Micro hardness of the cross section cutted from the hardfaced samples and un hardened sample was also studied using Brinell Hardness Testing Machine. Scanning Electron Microscopy was done to analyze the morphology of the surfaces of hardened and un hardened surfaces of samples. 

The shovels used in cultivators are largely manufactured by the small scale industries. Due to improper material and surface hardening treatments, the quality of shovels does not conform to the Bureau of Indian Standards resulting in high wear rates and reduced life. It leads to Farmer's complaint about the high wear rate of tiller shovels and agricultural equipments in dry land areas. This high wear rate increases the cost of part replacement, downtime and labour. The objective of this study was to improve the wear resistance of tiller shovel with four different hardfacing electrodes (Va, Co, B & Ti). Shield Metal Arc welding was used for depositing the layers of hardfacing alloy on tiller shovels. Rubber wheel abrasive test apparatus was used for Comparative wear tests on a regular tiller shovel and four hardfaced tiller shovels, where the effect of hardfacing alloys on the extent of wear and the wear characteristics of shovels were examined. In this study wear rate and hardness of regular tiller shovel and hardfaced tiller shovels, where studied. Regular tiller shovels gives the maximum wear and reduced 3 to 5 times with the help of hardfacing alloys.