Design principles for wear liners with inserts in mining chutes

Transporting of solid particles from one process step to another causes severe wear during bulk materials handling. This study derived design principles for wear liners with inserts for mining applications such as chutes. Two design parameters of the wear liners, namely the spacing and the exposure height of the inserts, are investigated. 35 wear liners with a systematic combination of these parameters were studied using Discrete Element Modelling (DEM) of non-spherical particles to investigate the resulting particle flow. Design principles were formulated for an optimum spacing and exposure height in respect to the particle size. For this optimum, a transition of the particle flow into a less severe regime (reduced by up to one order of magnitude) was observed. In this case, the sliding velocity was reduced, and particles flowed over themselves rather than on the wear liner. An optimum designed wear liner with inserts can lead to protective effects reducing the quantities associated with wear and increases the service life of a chute.