I have not used a linear wear tester, but I have been part of a team that expended a large amount of effort in trying to relate laboratory wear results from a range of tests to field tests in transfer chutes in hard rock mining.

It was possible to approximately rank candidate materials, on the basis of wear mechanisms and other factors, but not to get quantitative projections of wear life.

There are lots of reasons for this. Within a transfer chute there is always a variation of wear conditions and mechanisms through the chute. Wear tends to happen in patterns that change under the influence of many factors. Small changes in alignment, such as occur during routine maintenance, can have large effects on localised wear rates. Wear may be low initially, but accelerate as soon as initiation points occur. Conducting a quantitative field comparison of materials is a surprisingly difficult task.

In the case of sliding wear in hard rock situations, the gains to be made are small, unless the material is completely inappropriate. I suspect that, by and large, the same applies in your situation.

Good design, however, not only has an influence on wear, but on overall chute performance, and that is usually of much greater value, IMO.

Good luck with your endeavors. ■