Understanding and Preventing Breakage vs. Delamination in Mining Equipment Grinding Discs

Understanding Wear Plate Failure Modes in Heavy-Duty Mining Equipment

When it comes to high-load applications like mining and heavy construction, the reliability of wear plates—especially those made with brazed diamond segments—is critical for continuous operation and safety. At Henan Youde Superhard Tools Co., Ltd., we’ve seen firsthand how two common failure modes—chipping (崩刃) and delamination (脱落)—can disrupt production lines and increase maintenance costs.

Why Do These Failures Happen?

Based on our field data from over 400+ industrial installations across China, Southeast Asia, and Australia, chipping occurs in approximately 68% of cases due to poor bonding strength at the brazing interface, while delamination affects about 32%—often linked to uneven diamond distribution or inadequate dynamic balance.

Our engineers analyzed these failures using ASTM F2755 standards for brazed tool integrity and found that:

• Base material yield strength below 850 MPa significantly increases chip risk under impact loading.
• Non-uniform diamond layer thickness (>±0.1mm deviation) leads to localized stress concentration.
• Imbalanced grinding wheels (>0.3mm runout at 180mm diameter) cause premature fatigue fractures.

Real-World Case Study: A Cement Plant in Indonesia

A client reported frequent plate detachment after just 8 hours of continuous operation. Upon inspection, we discovered the base plate had a tensile strength of only 780 MPa (below recommended threshold), and the diamond layer was not evenly distributed—creating hotspots that overheated during operation. After replacing the plate with our 180mm high-wear-resistant brazed diamond model and adjusting machine parameters, the same plant ran continuously for 140+ hours without failure—a 17x improvement in uptime.

How Operators Can Prevent Premature Failure

We recommend this simple daily check before starting operations:

1. Visually inspect the diamond surface for cracks or missing segments.
2. Check for vibrations when rotating the plate manually—it should feel smooth and balanced.
3. Verify load consistency via torque sensors or real-time monitoring systems.

This routine helps catch early signs of wear or imbalance before they escalate into costly downtime events.