Case Study: Underground Mining Application (Part Depth and Harness)

Recently Zion Industries was involved in a development project for an underground mining application. Working together with a forging supplier to the mining industry, we developed the tooling and the process to achieve the required hardness and depth. Additionally the project also involved close tolerances of certain features after heat treat, Zion was able to meet and exceed the requirements for this phase of the project as well.

The product was launched successfully and soon put into service. After a few months of service it was evident that the original engineering specifications would not prove adequate for the severe duty that these products would encounter in the field. The mining equipment manufacturer realized that the hardness and depth would need to be increased to provide an adequate life span for this particular product. New specifications were drafted and provided to Zion Industries.

ion Industries was once again called upon to develop a new process, one that would allow the current parts to be reworked to the new specifications. Using a few test pieces, Zion was able to take the existing parts, and achieve a depth of over 3X the previous specification. This was not without challenges, as critical alloying agents that would have increased hardenability and the depth of hardness, were not added to the original material specifications. The process was developed and submitted to the customer for approval. The new process was found to be completely satisfactory and the decision was made to process all of the existing components to the new specifications.

Working closely with our customer, Zion was able to meet the requirements of the new process. The customer was able to save untold thousands of dollars and countless months that would have been involved in forging and machining new components. We look forward to working with you on your challenging application. Contact Zion Industries today to see how we can help. 

Lou Ghinga
Estimator
Zion Industries, Inc.