Advanced technical ceramics are some of the most toughest, most durable materials on Earth. Who would ever think advanced ceramics could be made into working springs.

Indeed, Izory® Zirconia ceramics can be made into springs. Izory® Zirconia ceramics are not the same materials that are used in your mom’s dishes or in toilet fixtures. Izory® Zirconia ceramics are highly engineered materials with properties that are nothing short of amazing.

Izory® Zirconia ceramics can be used in temperatures up to 1000º F. They can take industrial impacts, have incredible strength and wear resistance, and they are resistant to most chemical environments.

Because Izory® Zirconia ceramics have the proper ratio of flexural strength and elasticity, it can actually be made flexible. In this case, we have formed it into springs. And even though we may not be expert spring manufacturers, we do know technical ceramics. This ability of Izory® Zirconia ceramics to be flexible works as a sort of proof of concept for its amazing properties. Plus, we have seen a profusion of spring applications in corrosive environments for check valves and pumps. Those are the very environments in which Izory® Zirconia ceramics have the greatest potential to beneficially replace exotic metals, such as Inconel®.

When you are designing components for your equipment and the environment is harsh due to high wear, high corrosives, temperature extremes or any other harsh environmental issues, Izory® Zirconia ceramics are a viable alternative to carbides, metals and polymers. We typically use Izory® Zirconia ceramics for components for valves, pumps, draw dies, extrusion tooling, bushings, dies and much, much more.

When a mating part (valves, dies, rollers, etc.) deteriorates or breaks, it can bring a multi-billion dollar operation to a screeching halt. By extending the life of these simple mating parts, plant owners and operators can reduce downtime and unexpected financial interruptions to their operations.

Using Izory® Zirconia ceramic for equipment components in many industries offers some unique advantages to using. Izory® zirconia is an advanced ceramic that is extremely tough, wear resistant, and corrosion resistant. Not only that, but it has a low coefficient of friction and can be used in high and low temperature applications.

When an application calls for intense heat and/or pressure, Izory® zirconia easily outperforms tungsten carbides, stainless steels, polymers, and exotic metals.

Izory® can be formed into any shape, from a simple ball to a very complex check valve cage. Any design can be made in Izory® zirconia ceramic.

One side benefit of using Izory® zirconia ceramic components is the mating components have a tendency to have extended life cycles. Examples are if you replace a metal valve seat with Izory® the mating ball, if it is a ball valve or gate if it is a gate valve, will have much extended life. When you replace a carbide or metal plunger with Izory®, the life of the mating seals or packing will be extended. When you use Izory® rollers for manufacturing wire instead of carbide, metal or other ceramic compositions the wire will have fewer defects and better surface finishes. When manufacturing aluminum cans and you use Izory® dies instead of carbide or metal there will be fewer rejected cans and better surface finishes. These are only a few of the many examples of mating parts that have extended life cycles when using Izory®.

These mating part extended lives are direct result of Izory® having a lower coefficient of friction, high toughness, excellent corrosion resistance and great wear resistance.

When you replace typical materials with Izory® Zirconia ceramic components you get the benefits of better life of the replaced components as well as better life of mating components.

So not only will your parts function with greater reliability and longevity using Izory® Zirconia, but you can better plan for and save on maintenance while minimizing unexpected downtime. If you want a more consistent bottom line for your company, it should be a no brainer using Izory® Zirconia.

A bauxite processing facility picked Izory® Zirconia ceramic trunnion bushings for use in high temperature trunnion mounted ball valves to improve their longevity.

Two years ago, a Texas valve company contacted Refractron to discuss the possibility of making Izory® ceramic bushings for high temperature trunnion mounted valves used in the processing of bauxite materials. This valve company manufactures a variety of valves for controlling various fluids in many severe service applications. The valves range in size from ½” to 60” in diameter. Typical application industries are Power Generation, Oil & Gas, Refining, Chemicals, Pulp & Paper, Gasification, Synfuels, Mining, Steam, and more.

For our client, the particular application of interest was processing of bauxite. The application required a trunnion bushing that could withstand continuous use at 1200º F. The application had very little thermal shock, but had consistent high temperatures. At 1200º F, trunnion bushings made of polymer based materials fatigue and wear; metal trunnion bushings fatigue, corrode, and wear. When the bushings made of polymers and metals suffer failure, it reduces or even stops the ability to open and close the valve properly. This valve failure would cause delays in the manufacturing process, and has the potential to cause injury to people in the area if the valve would crack or break. Trunnion bushings made with Izory® Zirconia ceramic have no issue handling the high temperature, corrosion, or wear. Also, the coefficient of thermal expansion of Izory® Zirconia ceramic for the trunnion bushing was very close to the expansion rate of the metal trunnion and the mating metal valve housing.

The initial set of valves using the Izory® zirconia ceramic trunnion bushings are working very well. They are still in service after more than 18 months. The bauxite processing company is preparing to order more of the valves using the Izory® Zirconia ceramic trunnion bushings. This client’s satisfaction is another instance of Izory® Zirconia showing its worth as a replacement for tungsten carbides, stainless steels, and many other exotic metals for the toughest applications on Earth.

A Texas company was having premature wear on liners in their Triplex and Quinplex piston pumps. They use these pumps to permanently seal old and unproductive oil wells by filling them with concrete. A Triplex pump uses three pistons and liners per pump and a Quinplex pump uses five pistons and liners per pump. Current liners are stainless steel or chrome plated steel. With daily use, these metal liners lasted only one to two months.

They sent us a new and a used metal liner to evaluate. Our engineers studied the parts and suggested an Izory® zirconia ceramic liner that was shrunk fit into a metal housing. Using Izory® zirconia ceramic would improve the life of the liner. The concrete that is pumped into the wells is very abrasive and somewhat corrosive. Izory® zirconia ceramic has excellent corrosion resistance, very good wear resistance, and it’s impact resistant.

Some engineering analysis was completed to make sure the Izory® ceramic was firmly held in place. Parameters for shrink fitting had to be established, tolerances had to be set, and surface finishes had to be determined to ensure the mating piston would operate appropriately. We also had to pay special attention to the size of the metal, so it could bolt up to the existing pump housing. The Izory® zirconia ceramic and metal housing were machined to tight tolerances so the shrink fit was perfect. The ID of the ceramic was diamond ground so it mated exactly with the piston.

There were no start-up or operation issues. After 8 months of use the pump was taken out of service. The liners did not show any wear in the 8 months. The pump was reassembled and put back in service. After another year of operation there were no signs of pump failure.

Using Izory® zirconia ceramic exceeded all of our client’s needs for the pump because it is extremely tough, wear resistant, corrosion resistant, and has a low coefficient of friction. It can be used in high temperature applications. Izory® zirconia is extremely well suited for designing components for valves, chokes, pumps, and any other flow control devices. Izory® zirconia is a replacement for tungsten carbides, stainless steels, polymers and exotic metals when the applications are the most rigorous. It can be easily formed into any shape, from a simple ball to a very complex check valve cage. Any design that can be made in metal or a polymer can be made in Izory® zirconia.

Refractron is proud to announce that we will be exhibiting at INTERWIRE 2013 at booth 870, from April 23 –April 25 in Atlanta, Georgia. As the largest and longest-running wire and cable marketplace in the Americas, the international trade event draws speakers, attendees, and exhibiting companies from over 50 different countries and spans dozens of industries.

Wire Association International, the organizer of the event, is a worldwide society for wire and cable industry professionals.  This year, Refractron will be promoting its Izory® tetragonally toughened zirconia drawing cones, guides and eyelets.  Izory® is ideal for applications like wire drawing that require tough, wear and corrosion resistant products. Izory® products can be used in a variety of industries including oil & gas, chemical processing, and food service. That means that INTERWIRE is going to be the perfect place to display our products!

For more information about the event and to register, please visit the INTERWIRE Trade Exposition Information Page.

When choosing a durable part replacement consider Refractron Technologies Corp’s Izory® Zirconia ceramic (MgPSZ) as an optimum choice for precision ceramic balls.  Izory® Zirconia ceramic is used where traditional metal alloys and carbides are not ideal. Our solution, Izory® Zirconia has superior abrasion and corrosion resistance as compared to stainless steel, D2 tool steel, Stellite, tungsten carbide, and more.  In addition, Izory® is inert to virtually all acids, bases, solvents, and other corrosive slurries and fluids.

Izory® Used in Industries including:

-   Food Service

-   Pharmaceutical Applications

-    Human Implantable Devices (hip heads, femoral knee components, dental inlays, onlays, caps, and crowns)

Typical applications for Izory® precision balls are check valves. Check valves use solid balls to seal off the fluid flow by either mechanically actuation with a spring, hydraulically actuated with fluid pressure or an outside force. The balls seal against a seat to insure leak tight operations. In severe cases Izory® Zirconia can also be used to manufacture the valve seats.

Izory® precision balls provide up to ten times the abrasion resistance of stainless steel, six times the abrasion resistance of tungsten carbide, better than three times the impact resistance of silicon carbide and can be used in temperatures up to 1000º F.  Consider turning to Refractron for the most durable, cost-effective, and optimal part replacement options.

Izory® – Zirconia ceramic seats were used in ¼-turn ball valves to improve the life of the valves from as little as 30 days to more than 9 months.

A few weeks ago, a California company contacted Refractron to discuss the possibility of making Izory® ceramic balls and seats for ¼-turn ball valves. They had several major oil producing outfits located in the state that were running into problems. They relied on 3-inch ¼-turn ball valves for controlling the flow of the crude oil from the wells to the pipelines. The current valve design used a stainless steel ball and soft polymer based seats. This design worked all right, but was subject to unexpected failures, which obviously can’t be tolerated in any application let alone at an oil production field.

We said we could definitely make the parts resist wear and corrosion and last longer. We have had an immense amount of experience with this type of application.

Right away, we dispatched a representative to the company’s plant in Bakersfield, CA to review the application and components in more detail. What they found was that the stainless balls in the valves were heavily worn; the seats were no longer sealing the crude oil flow against the ball, which was causing the failures. The valves themselves ranged in size from ½” to 8” in diameter. These valves faced temperatures of up to 150º F and pressures of up to 800 psi. Additionally, the crude oil that was being pumped through the valves was highly loaded with corrosives and abrasives because of naturally occurring SiO2, CO2, H2S, H2O, and sand. This combination of heat, pressure, and abrasion caused the stainless steel and polymer valves to leak at random, often after only 30 to 60 days of use.

After assessing the situation and conducting a brief consultation, the customer suggested that the stainless steel ball should be replaced with an Izory® zirconia ceramic ball. They also wanted to start with a 3” valve design because it is commonly used in a field where it can be easily monitored.

After reviewing all the information we suggested they first only replace the seats of the valve (and of course stay with the 3” design).

We made this decision based on analysis of the used parts. It looked like the polymer based soft seats were embedded with the sand particles. And so, as the valve opened and closed, the sand was scratching the stainless valve ball. The scratching ultimately acted like sand paper wearing the ball and causing the valve to leak. The abrasion caused the valves to leak after only 30 to 60 days. If only we could stop the seats from becoming embedded with sand, then the ball would last longer. The customer agreed that was a good suggestion and we would start with only replacing the seat. Replacing only the seat, instead of the ball, was also a less costly approach to this problem application. The manufacture of the ball with the holes for the stem and the through bore would be very costly to manufacture. The seats used a much more straight forward manufacturing process and used much less ceramic material. All of this made replacing the seats a less expensive proposition.

In order to replace the soft polymer based seats, the valve needed a slight design change. The Izory® zirconia ceramic seats were much harder than the polymer, and thus adjustments had to be made to ensure the valves stayed leak tight. This was accomplished with some slight dimensional and tolerance changes.

The initial set of valves using the Izory® zirconia ceramic seats worked very well. They were taken out of service after more than nine months, which was a 450% to 900% improvement!

There were many benefits to using Izory® zirconia ceramic seats. There was a reduced need to replace valves, so more oil was pumped without a service interruption. Less time was spent by field people for maintenance, resulting in less overall downtime. All of these benefits culminated in better, more cost effective operations. They directly influenced the company’s bottom line, saving them money and giving them value.

Izory® zirconia is an advanced ceramic that is extremely tough, wear resistant, corrosion resistant, and has a low coefficient of friction. It can be used in high temperature applications. Izory® zirconia is extremely well suited for designing components for valves, chokes, pumps, and any other flow control devices. Izory® zirconia is a replacement for tungsten carbides, stainless steels, polymers and exotic metals when the applications are the most rigorous. It can be easily formed into any shape, from a simple ball to a very complex check valve cage. Anything design that can be made in metal or a polymer can be made in Izory® zirconia.