By cooperating with a local steel foundry, the worn parts can be re-cast to new parts, creating a local, circular value chain.
Wearing parts made of steel are used in machines that subject those parts to severe mechanical stress, and the parts are quickly worn out. Some processes therefore require frequent replacement of steel parts. Typically, these parts are made of hard-wearing steel alloys, such as high manganese steel. A common solution in Nordland today is to import these parts. By cooperating with a local steel foundry, the used parts can be sent to the foundry to be re-cast into new parts. This minimizes the need to add new material and utilizes the steel in these parts fully in a circular process.
Euromet is a foundry in Mo i Rana that specializes in high alloy steels, including high manganese steel for wearing parts. To start supplying circularly produced wearing parts for the machines at Elkem Rana, Euromet must first demonstrate that they can achieve a wear life for the parts that exceeds the parts Elkem are using today. This will be investigated in a pilot test where the parts will be produced using modern grain refiners and carefully controlled heat treatment. The parts will be monitored closely with measurements of the wear progression throughout their lifetime at Elkem Rana to document the effect on the wear life of the parts.
The systematic measurement program and data from the wear of the parts will be used in later projects to further develop the steel parts.
The partners in the project are Euromet, Elkem, and SINTEF Helgeland. The project is funded by Nordland County as a pre-project in the FORREGION-program with a grant of 300 000 NOK.