Optimisation of chain conveyor lines in forging workshop south of the border reduces failure rate by 90%

A. Why is your chain always on strike? Three major heat killers are at work

Let's first nag a real case: Jiangsu, a forge last year, an average of every 43 hours on the downtime to change the chain, a year of maintenance costs alone burned 28 million. Guess where the problem lies?High temperature annealing, oxide seizing, hot and cold fatigueThese three brothers are teaming up to make things happen!

• ​The pin becomes "spaghetti.": 1200 ℃ billet directly pressed on the chain, the ordinary pin is like chocolate in the heat, 30 days of wear and tear over 40%, a factory measured monthly wear off a pencil thick metal
• ​Oxidised skin as "sand and rice".: Splash of iron filings drilled into the chain joints, workers have to stop every 2 hours to pull out the chain, or directly jammed and burned the motor!
• ​The temperature difference plays "Ice and Fire".Tight side of the chain is baked at 450℃, and the loose side is drenched by cooling water to room temperature, 300 times of hot and cold cycles a day is equal to the loss of ordinary chain for 3 years.

​reach a conclusion after weighing a matterWhy do chains break the more you fix them?
​solutionSimply changing parts is not a cure! A factory originally used 60Si2Mn alloy chain plate, life is only 8 months, and then on theNitriding + ceramic coating, straight through to 2 years - material upgrades are the real antidote!

Second, the material revolution! Three layers of armour transform the chain into "Iron Man".

Want to survive the "hell mode" of the forge? You need three layers of armour for the chain:

​Operation Guide(A must-see for whites):

1. ​Tungsten carbide wear sleeveDon't dislike it hard! Overfitting assembly heated to 150°C before snapping or it will crack
2. ​aerogel fillingTo be like a sandwich: chain plate sandwich thickness ≥ 3mm, thermal conductivity pressed to 0.03W/m-K
3. ​nitridingDon't sand it down! If the ceramic layer is removed, it's useless.

The original words of a factory teacher in Hebei: "In the past, month after month to repair the chain repair to vomit, after replacing this three-piece set, guess what? Screwed twice last year!"

III. Protection systems: "smart survival kits" for chains

Want to save your life in a hot workshop? Just hard to carry can't, have to be "dodge back to blood"! Three strokes to teach you to build automatic protection network:
​1. Dynamic water-cooling cycle - a high-temperature killer​

• Sink depth = chain width x 1.2 times (e.g. if the chain is 100mm wide make it 120mm deep)
• Water temperature monitoring ± 2 ℃ error, over 95 ℃ automatic water exchange
  A factory measured: the chain back to soak 10 seconds, the temperature from 1200 ℃ → 600 ℃

​2. Intelligent oil-air lubrication - a joint saviour​

• Miniature oil reservoir in each chain link (sesame seed size is enough)
• Spray 0.1 seconds of oil mist every 30 minutes, saving 90% in fuel consumption.

​3. Thermal deformation-resistant structure - anti-jamming magic weapon​

plaintextmake a copy of
0.5mm expansion slit in pin + elastic pin locking
↓
elongation 1.2mm at 950°C without jamming
↓
start-stop shock load drop 40%  
An auto parts factory in Zhejiang used this set, unexpected downtime from 3 times a day to 1 time in half a month.

Four: Slope skidding? A wild way to get steel balls to crawl obediently up a slope
Inclined section conveying round steel slipping rate 70%? Teach you three strokes "earth method to tame the beast":

​1. Articulated pusher blocks welded together​

Height of L-block = 1/3 of the diameter of the workpiece (e.g. 100 mm steel ball welded with a 33 mm block).
Push block spacing <1.5 times the length of the workpiece

​2. Fishscale non-slip engraving​

Laser engraved 0.8mm deep scale pattern, friction coefficient from 0.15 → 0.48

A bearing factory in Shandong measured: steel ball conveying speed increased by 3.6 times
​3. Asymmetric baffle layout​
plaintextmake a copy of
Left side: 80mm high continuous barrier → anti-roll down
Right side: 30mm high serrated discontinuous → easy gripping by manipulator  
With the cushioning device mentioned on page 8, there is no longer any fear of the steel balls "jumping off a cliff"!

Fifth, the results speak! 24 months without major repairs of the real record!
2024 retrofit data for a 10,000 tonne forging plant in Jiangsu:



​norm​
pre-conversion
after conversion
​variations​




failure interval
43 hours.
512 hours
↑1090%


Production per day
80 tonnes
142 tonnes
↑77.5%


Annual maintenance fee
280,000
63,000
↓77.5%


Downtime losses
1.5 million
0
100% Stop Loss



The masters are now teasing: "This chain is more durable than the old yellow ox in our factory!"

Anyone who's ever worked in a forge knows.Chain optimisation is not about tinkering, it's about giving the production line a new lease of life. When I witnessed a plant transformation, 1200 ℃ billet like a fire dragon in the conveyor line climbing, but the chain is stable to carry two years - that moment to understand: the real cost reduction and efficiency, is to put out the fire every day "into" peace of mind! It was at that moment that I realised: the real cost reduction and efficiency increase is to turn "putting out fires every day" into "drinking tea at ease". Next time you meet chain strike in the workshop, don't be in a hurry to scold, first change the pin into tungsten carbide, give the chain plate sandwich stuffed with aerogel, and then get a set of intelligent water-cooling system... Hey, believe it or not, next year the boss will give you a double end-of-year bonus?

Data source: Lite-On Technology high-temperature production line modification case library (2025), Yap Heavy Industries in-service report (2024)