Refiner Refiner Plate Key Performance Requirements

The refiner plate is the “heart” of the refiner machine and is a consumable part among pulp accessories. In addition to requiring good refining performance, it must also possess strong wear resistance, mechanical toughness to withstand impact loads, high reliability and applicability, superior comprehensive mechanical properties, high strength and hardness, corrosion resistance, excellent metallurgical quality and casting performance, as well as high dimensional accuracy and dynamic-static balance requirements. These features reduce worker labor intensity and production costs, ensuring stable refining effects and minimizing fluctuations in pulp quality. There are hundreds of variations in tooth width, tooth height, tooth spacing, and tooth arrangement patterns, including radial, tangential, and parabolic types, along with significant differences in wall thickness transitions, making both molding and casting extremely challenging. As a cast component, it must be free of sand holes, shrinkage cavities, shrinkage looseness, and cracks, while also requiring high dimensional accuracy and a smooth cast surface. The material of the refiner plate directly impacts its service life, the production capacity of the refiner, and the stability of pulp quality.

Refined Plate Material Selection and Wear-resistant Treatment

Refiner plate are particularly prone to wear and even tooth breakage during operation, mainly due to material reasons, in addition to foreign objects entering and damaging them.

The wear resistance is related to the hardness and toughness of the refiner plate material. For this purpose, nickel hard cast iron, high chromium white cast iron, and stainless steel are commonly used for refiner plate. The high chromium white cast iron used for refiner plate usually includes three series: Cr15, Cr20, and Cr25, supplemented with other alloying elements such as nickel, tungsten, molybdenum, etc., to form multi-element alloy high chromium cast iron. There have a new material design for refiner plate, which contains C0.25%~3.30%, Cr2.2%~17.5%, and Ni0.25%~4.90%; Mo0~0.8%， The rest is made of iron. This disc plate has the advantages of corrosion and wear resistance, stable performance, and good dynamic balance performance. The hardness and impact toughness of nickel chromium alloy are superior to ordinary alloy materials, and the refiner plate produced are generally used in domestic pulp mills with a diameter of 600mm or less. APMP, CTMP and other processes use metal materials with higher carbon content for refiner plate to ensure their hardness and wear resistance. For the pulping of raw materials that have been loosened, disc refiner plate with relatively lower material hardness are generally used, which have a relatively weaker cutting effect on the fibers and are beneficial for fiber separation and pulverization. Alloy steel metal materials are generally used for refiner plate of 600mm and above in paper mills.