Study of the Impact of Coals and Claystones on Wear-Resistant Steels.

This paper discusses the impact of coal abrasive materials of varied petrographic composition and claystones containing admixtures of coal matter on the surface wear of wear-resistant martensitic steels. Wear tests were conducted at a test stand for three petrographic varieties of hard coal: vitrinite, clarinite, and durinite, and five samples of claystone. These tests revealed no significant effect of the type of coal abrasive used on the value of mass loss from the surface of the wear-resistant steel samples. The reason behind the foregoing is the observed tendency of coal abrasives, irrespective of their petrographic variety, to penetrate surface irregularities, especially those attributable to previous surface treatment of the samples and the impact of wear products. The dominant forms of surface damage were surface fatigue chipping and scratches caused by the particles which detached themselves from the surface of the steel samples, as observed for all the analysed coal variants. On the surfaces of the samples seasoned in the presence of claystones, highly varied forms of damage were observed: microcutting, scaly surface cracks, delamination, and deep cracks. In these cases, it was possible that the abrasive grains had been pressed into the steel surface irregularities, but no layered forms of the pressed-in abrasive material were observed to have developed. The paper also presents a model for the formation of coal films and discusses their possible effect on wear minimisation.

A Complex Vibration Analysis of a Drive System Equipped with an Innovative Prototype of a Flexible Torsion Clutch as an Element of Pre-Implementation Testing.

The paper presents how an important aspect of introducing new machines, especially in the mining industry, is testing a prototype under laboratory conditions. For this purpose, advanced methods of analyzing the vibrations of a drive system equipped with an innovative prototype of a flexible torsion clutch are presented. The main goal is to present a comprehensive method for analyzing vibration signals in various dimensions of the signal analysis. As a result of this approach, it can be seen how much important information about the tested clutch can be obtained by using various analysis methods in terms of time-frequency distributions or order analysis. To emphasize the differences in the functioning of the tested clutch and the possibility of monitoring these differences on the basis of the observation of residual processes, such as vibrations, the results for the flexible and locked clutch are compared.

Research on Vibroactivity of Toothed Gears with Highly Flexible Metal Clutch under Variable Load Conditions.

The article provides a discussion on a methodology intended for testing of power transmission systems featuring an innovative highly torsionally flexible metal clutch patented by the co-authors of this paper. What this methodology takes into account is the amplitude and frequency analyses discussed in the article, as well as a sensing system based on diverse piezoelectric and magnetic phenomena, the Doppler effect, etc. Both contact and non-contact (laser measurement) methods were used during the tests. The purpose of the tests conducted at the stand, originally designed by the authors in accordance with the methodology proposed, was to evidence that using the innovative and patented, highly torsionally flexible metal clutch makes it possible to reduce the vibrations of multi-stage toothed gears, consequently reducing the forces affecting the gear bearings and those acting at the tooth space, which is to enable the service life of individual components of the power transmission systems intended for mining scraper conveyors to be significantly extended. Based on the studies and analyses performed by the authors, one can observe and conclude that the methodology proposed in the paper makes it possible to use an example of a relatively complex power transmission system in order to examine the relationships between the processes at work, i.e., the decline of the linear vibrations of the gear housing (which is undoubtedly positive in power transmission systems) at the expense of increasing torsional vibrations of the innovative clutch, the latter not to be considered unfavourable to users in the case analysed.