RESISTING WEAR ATTACK IN OIL SANDS MINING AND PROCESSING

Wear damage is responsible for very high maintenance costs and signifi cant production losses in the oil sands industry of northern Alberta. It affects all areas of operations and involves a panoply of wear mech anisms from low stress sliding abrasion at extremely frigid temperatur es during winter mining, to elevated temperature erosion/corrosion in processes where bitumen is converted to lighter hydrocarbon products. There is no universal panacea to defend against such diverse attack an d a wide selection of resistant materials and systems is employed. The se range from relatively soft rubbers which rely on their elastic prop erties for their protective capability to some of the hardest ceramics and cermets which are currently available commercially. Details are p resented of the characteristics and forms of the variety of wear mater ials being used and how they relate to the requirements of their areas of application. The review focuses on the practices followed at Syncr ude Canada Ltd., which is the larger of the two commercial oil sands p lants.