Metals have good ductility but have a very poor resistance to abrasion. This is why abrasion prevention methods are undertaken to make pipes used in petrochemical plants tolerant slurry pipes. Slurry is a suspension of solid particles in a liquid. In various industries like mining, petroleum, power generation, food, wastewater, pulp and paper, as well as cement, and steel industries, abrasive or slurry has to be transported and they are transported via piping as pumped slurry or pneumatic transportation. Being abrasive, slurry erodes the inner lining of the pipes causing pipe leaks, which usually results in considerable money and time loss in maintenance and pipe replacement.

Abrasive wear occurs when a hard rough surface slides across a softer surface. ASTM International (formerly American Society for Testing and Materials) defines it as the loss of material due to hard particles or hard protuberances that are forced to move along a solid surface.

Categorizing of abrasive wear depends on the type of contact and the type of contact environment. The nature of contact establishes the type of abrasive wear, which are of two types – the two-body wear and the three-body abrasive wear. Two-body wear is defined as removal of material from the opposite surface by the abrasive, while the three body wear occurs when the abrasive particles are able to freely roll over and slide down a surface. The contact environment classifies wear as either open or closed. As per ISO 9352 or ASTM D 1044, the Taber Abrasion Test can measure the abrasive wear as loss of mass.

Slurry pipe and pipelines specifically developed using a variety of ‘abrasion resistant’ products for use in high wear areas. Operating on the two-body wear products have been developed in diverse increased hardness that measure on the Brinell Scale starting from A-R steel of 200 BHN to iron cast pipe up to 800 BHN.

Timcast ‘Forever Pipe’ is a bi-metal casting pipe with the inner pipe to cope with highly abrasive and corrosive slurries.