Screening the Main Factors Affecting the Wear of the Scraper Conveyor Chute Using the Plackett–Burman Method

The wear of scraper conveyor chute causes both significant economic and environmental losses by shortening the service life. The life of the chute under coal abrasive wear situations is primarily decided by operating conditions and the materials properties. The comprehensive analysis of the influence factors had not been studied before. In this paper, the Plackett-Burman design (PBD) method was used to screen the main influence factors and a regression equation was developed to predict the wear loss. The steel was tested on a modified pin-on-disk apparatus in which coal abrasive was filled in the disk. The influence factors included water content, gangue content, coal particle size, Hardgrove Grindability-Index (HGI) of the coal, normal load, and scraper chain speed. The results of the investigation suggested that the significance of water content, normal load, and gangue content on wear loss was relatively higher than the HGI of coal, scraper chain speed, and coal particle size. The wear loss increased with the increase of water content, gangue content, normal load, and coal particle size while it decreased as increase in HGI of the coal and scraper chain speed. Based on the significance of the parameters, the regression equations were derived and verified further with a number of test cases. Optical microscope studies revealed the main wear mechanism of the chute was mainly micro-cutting and corrosive wear and accompanied by fatigue fracture.