Altus upgrades its slag dumper bodies to Hardox® HiTemp, extending service life by several years

Slag – leftover waste from metal smelting or refining – produces aggregates that have a highly angular shape and a rough surface texture. But slag is no match for high-temperature Hardox^® HiTemp wear steel. This Singaporean company replaced a traditional box-shaped slag body in mild steel at its steel mill with a U-shaped body in Hardox^® HiTemp, and practically eliminated maintenance and repairs. When the new slag bodies had been in use for more than three years, the steel showed only marginal wear. Since Hardox^® HiTemp performs well at elevated temperatures in the 300–500°C (570–930°F) range, it proved to be an optimal wear-resistant solution that also gives high structural strength to the body.

The new body design was a radical change from a box type body with stiffeners. Altus conferred with SSAB’s technical support and landed on a more optimized solution, both in terms of weight and service life. 

The previous slag tipper had a floor in 25.4 mm (1”) steel and 12.7 (0.5”) mm sides. The upgraded slag body used Hardox^® HiTemp with a 10 mm (0.394”) floor and 8 mm (0.315”) sides. The U-shaped body has an integrated top rail and needs no stiffeners, which also simplifies production for Altus.

Overall, the new body weighed 2.236 kg (4,930 lbs.) less than the old design, which translates to an impressive 40% weight reduction. This allows for more payload and reduced fuel consumption when the truck runs empty.

Altus has made a number of slag dump bodies with Hardox^® HiTemp, and the follow-up wear measurements confirm the low wear rates. After a year and a half, ultrasonic testing on one of the slag dumpers showed wear of about 0.7-0.9 mm (0.028- 0.035”). No repairs have been performed on the bodies in Hardox^® HiTemp after three years, while the previous slag dumpers had a working life of only 2-3 months and during that time, they needed frequent repairs.

Thanks to the low wear rate on the first slag dump bodies, Altus is confident to reduce the plate thickness. In the new slag bodies, they will use 8 mm (0.315”) Hardox^® HiTemp for both the floor and the sides. This will reduce the body’s weight even further by 450 kg (992 lbs.).