Wear resistant ceramics perform exceptionally well in sliding abrasion applications, typically:

Materials handling in iron ore or coal plants, chutes, slurry transfer pipes, cyclones, dry pneumatic material transfer pipes and high temperature applications.

Ceramic materials can give extremely high hardness and usually can be much cheaper than the exotic hard-facing alloys they replace. Because of the lower costs, ceramics can be and are used in bulk wear resistant applications to extend plant life. The obvious limitations are that they are brittle and must never be subject to tensile stresses or high impact levels.

Each application should be evaluated as to the type of abrasion ie: Low Stress Abrasion (Fine Particle), High Stress Abrasion (Gouging Abrasion) and Solid Particle Abrasion (Impact Abrasion). This determines the correct material selection for the relevant processes.