In field applications, detachment and fracturing are the most common failure modes of alumina ceramic liners. In most cases, these failures are not caused by quality issues of the ceramics themselves, but by improper structural design, installation processes, or substrate preparation. This article introduces three mainstream installation structures—adhesive-bonded, bolt-fixed, and composite liners—analyzes the causes of failure, and provides key points for engineering design and construction control.

I. Characteristics of Three Mainstream Installation Structures

1. Adhesive-Bonded Ceramic Liners

High-performance inorganic/organic wear-resistant adhesives are used to bond ceramic liners onto the steel substrate of equipment.

Advantages: Convenient construction, no drilling required, suitable for curved surface modification of pipes and chutes; lightweight, does not damage the original equipment structure.

Limitations: The substrate temperature must not exceed the temperature resistance limit of the adhesive; not suitable for strong impacts from large materials.

Applications: Dust removal ducts, ash hoppers, coal bunker inner walls, cyclone cylinders, etc.

2. Bolt-Fixed Ceramic Liners

Ceramic liners are pre-fabricated with countersunk bolt holes, and bolts are used to lock the ceramic plates onto the steel plate. Plate seams can be filled with sealant.

Advantages: Mechanical locking provides high bonding reliability and high temperature resistance; even if a single adhesive layer fails, the liner is still unlikely to detach, and maintenance and replacement are convenient.

Limitations: The steel plate requires drilling, involving multiple construction steps; corner positions require matching specially shaped liners.

Applications: Discharge chutes, crusher guard plates, coarse particle impact areas.

3. Ceramic-Rubber Composite Liners

Ceramic blocks are vulcanized and bonded onto a rubber backing plate, which is then adhesively bonded or bolted to the equipment.

Advantages: The rubber layer cushions impacts, absorbs the impact energy of large materials, and compensates for the brittleness of pure ceramics; excellent noise reduction.

Limitations: Temperature resistance is limited by the rubber performance; under continuous high-speed fine particle abrasion, the rubber edges are prone to wear.

Applications: Mining material silos, transfer points, strong impact areas of large-drop chutes.

II. Analysis of Common Causes of Liner Failure

Inadequate steel substrate preparation: Oil stains, rust, and floating dust on the steel surface are not cleaned, causing the adhesive layer to peel off from the steel plate and the ceramic to detach in whole sheets.

Structural design defects: Stress concentration at corners and sharp angles, with materials directly impacting the edges of ceramic plates, causing chipping and fracturing; unreasonable plate seam design: excessively large gaps between liners allow particles to penetrate into the seams and gradually hollow out the adhesive layer; excessively small gaps cause thermal expansion and contraction to squeeze and crack the ceramics.

Selection beyond operating conditions: Using pure ceramic liners without cushioning in strong impact scenarios, where repeated impacts cause ceramic fatigue and fracturing.

III. Key Points for Engineering Design and Construction Control

The equipment substrate should be ground and derusted, with surface roughness meeting standards, and oil and dust removed; in humid environments, moisture-resistant specialty adhesives should be selected; liner arrangement should avoid materials impacting directly against the edges of ceramic plates, and corners should preferentially use integrally formed specially shaped liners.

Reasonable expansion joints should be reserved, and plate seams should be filled with wear-resistant sealant to prevent particle wedging.

For high-temperature operating conditions, thermal expansion differences should be calculated in advance, and bolted structures should be preferentially selected; for locations with high impact loads, ceramic-rubber composite solutions should be adopted.

After liner installation is completed, feeding and impact are prohibited during the curing period.

IV. Technical Support from Chemshun Ceramics

Pingxiang Chemshun Ceramics Co., Ltd. can assist with liner layout design and corner special-shaped part matching based on equipment drawings, and provide corresponding installation process guidance documents. For retrofit projects, we can recommend matching structural solutions based on on-site operating conditions to reduce the frequency of later ceramic liner failure repairs.