About Conco Company’s Metal Abrasive Blasting
- Conco Company features large fully automated sandblasting machines and a complete production line, ensuring timely delivery and high-quality products for customer satisfaction. Moreover, Conco provides professional suggestions for product improvement, maintaining quality while reducing costs.
Working principle of metal sandblasting
The working principle of sandblasting equipment involves using a compressor to generate high-pressure air. The regulating valve controls the pressure and flow, drawing abrasive material from the abrasive tank. This material is propelled at high speed and pressure through a blasting gun onto the surface of the workpiece. In this process, the abrasive strikes the surface at high speed, altering its appearance or shape for cleaning, polishing, or finishing.
The applications of sandblasting equipment are very wide-ranging, primarily including the following areas:
- Surface cleaning: Sandblasting equipment removes residues like oxide scale and oil stains, revealing a uniform metallic finish. This enhances the workpiece’s quality and appearance and improves coating application standards.
- Шероховатость поверхности: sandblasting machine creates a uniform, fine-textured surface on the workpiece,increasing surface area, improving lubrication, and reducing frictional wear.
- strengthening: abrasive blasting machine reinforces the workpiece surface with high-velocity abrasives, boosting its fatigue strength and corrosion resistance.
What are the advantages of metal sandblasting?
Effective surface cleaning: Thoroughly removes oxide layers, rust, old paint, dirt, and other contaminants from metal surfaces, restoring them to their original state and providing a solid foundation for subsequent processes like coating and electroplating.
- Improving coating adhesion: Increasing the metal surface roughness significantly enhances coating adhesion and durability, reducing the likelihood of peeling or flaking.
- Improving surface quality: Sandblasting creates a uniform, smooth metal surface by removing irregularities and defects, enhancing visual appearance and overall quality.
- Increasing fatigue resistance: Sandblasting eliminates stress concentration areas on the metal surface, enhancing the parts’ fatigue resistance and service life.
- Wide applicability: Suitable for various metal materials, including steel, aluminium alloys, and magnesium alloys, as well as components of different shapes and sizes, offering high versatility.
- Economic benefits: Metal sandblasting usually has lower costs than other surface treatment processes and can handle large volumes quickly, improving production efficiency.
What grit is bead blasting?
- Common types of sandblasting:
- Cast steel shot: Its hardness generally ranges from 40 to 50 HRC. When processing hard metal, you can increase the hardness to 57 to 62 HRC. Cast steel shot offers good toughness and is widely used, lasting several times longer than cast iron shot.
- Cast iron shot: Its hardness ranges from 58 to 65 HRC. It is brittle and prone to fragmentation, leading to a short service life and limited usage, primarily in situations where high shot peening intensity is unnecessary.
- Стеклянные бусины: Softer than the previous two types, they mainly serve stainless steel, titanium, aluminium, magnesium, and other materials requiring no iron contamination. They also assist in secondary processing after steel shot peening to remove iron contamination and reduce surface roughness.
What are the disadvantages of sandblasting?
- Difficulty in controlling surface roughness: Sandblasted metal surfaces often remain relatively rough and are challenging to control precisely, rendering them unsuitable for components that require high surface precision.
- Potential introduction of residual stress: The impact of high-velocity metal particles during sandblasting can deform the metal surface, potentially introducing residual stress that may affect component strength and durability.
- Unsuitable for complex shapes and small components: Sandblasting may be inconvenient or ineffective for complex shapes or small parts, making thorough cleaning and treatment difficult.
- Environmental and health impacts: The dust and noise generated during the sandblasting process pose potential risks to the environment and the health of workers, necessitating additional protective measures and environmental control methods.
- High demand for energy and consumables: Sandblasting equipment requires a significant amount of compressed air and abrasive media (such as steel shot, sand, etc.), placing considerable pressure on energy and material costs.
- Subsequent processing requirements: Sandblasted surfaces typically require further treatment, such as cleaning, coating, and corrosion protection, which adds to the number of processes and costs.
Although metal sandblasting offers unique advantages in surface treatment, users must also weigh and address its drawbacks in practical applications to ensure optimal treatment results and workplace safety.
What are the hazards of metal sandblasting?
Metal sandblasting presents several hazards that can affect both workers and the surrounding environment. Here are the primary concerns:
Health impacts
- Inhalation diseases: The sandblasting process generates a large amount of fine metal dust, which, if inhaled by operators, can lead to respiratory diseases such as pneumoconiosis. Harmful substances contained in the metal dust, such as heavy metals (e.g. lead, cadmium) and organic compounds, pose an even greater risk to human health.
- Skin diseases: Prolonged exposure to metal dust may lead to skin allergies, rashes, and other issues, especially for workers with sensitive skin.
- Hearing damage: Metal sandblasting equipment typically generates loud noise during operation. Without effective noise protection measures, prolonged exposure to high-noise environments may lead to hearing loss or even permanent deafness for operators.
Safety risks
· Mechanical injuries
High-velocity impact injuries: During the metal sandblasting process, operators may sustain injuries from the high-speed abrasive particles, which carry significant kinetic energy. Mishandling or inadequate protective measures can result in damage to sensitive areas like the eyes and face.
Debris injuries: During the sandblasting process, rust, coatings, or other debris removed from the metal surface may splatter at high speed, potentially causing injury to operators or nearby personnel.
· Fire and explosion
Flammable materials: Some abrasive materials used in sandblasting and the metal materials being treated can be flammable.If mishandled or if equipment malfunctions, this could lead to a fire.
Explosion risk: In enclosed environments, if the dust concentration during sandblasting becomes too high and ventilation is poor, an explosive dust cloud may form. If exposed to sparks or high temperatures, this could trigger an explosion.
- Environmental impacts
· Dust pollution
Air quality: If workers do not effectively control the large amounts of dust generated during the sandblasting process, it can spread into the surrounding environment, leading to a decline in air quality and adversely affecting nearby residents and the ecosystem.
· Waste disposal
Solid waste: The metal sandblasting process removes coatings, rust, and other debris.
- Prevention measures
To reduce the health, safety, and environmental hazards associated with the metal sandblasting process, the following prevention measures can be implemented:
- Health protection
Personal protective equipment (PPE): Operators must wear appropriate protective gear, such as dust masks, protective gloves, safety goggles, and noise-cancelling ear muffs, to prevent dust inhalation and noise-related injuries.
Health monitoring: Regular health checks for operators should be conducted, particularly focusing on lung function and hearing assessments, to identify and address health issues promptly.
- Safety measures
Equipment maintenance: Regularly inspect and maintain sandblasting equipment to ensure it operates properly, thereby preventing injuries caused by equipment failure.
Protective barriers: Establish protective screens or isolation facilities in the sandblasting work area to prevent debris from causing harm to personnel.
Emergency plans: Develop detailed plans and train operators in methods and measures to respond to emergencies such as fires and explosions.
- Environmental protection
Enclosed operations: Conduct sandblasting operations in enclosed or semi-enclosed environments to minimise dust dispersion.
Ventilation systems: Install effective ventilation and dust extraction systems to remove and manage dust generated during the sandblasting process promptly.
Waste disposal: Classify and manage waste generated from sandblasting, using environmentally friendly methods for recycling or safe disposal to minimise environmental pollution.
In summary, while metal sandblasting is an effective surface treatment method, it is crucial to implement safety measures to address these hazards, including the use of personal protective equipment, effective ventilation systems, and proper waste disposal methods.
The future development of metal sandblasting
In the future, metal sandblasting technology may evolve and improve in the following areas:
- Intelligence and automation: The introduction of intelligent control systems and automated equipment will enhance the precision and efficiency of the sandblasting process, reduce manual intervention, and lower operational and labour costs.
- Environmentally friendly technologies: Develop and adopt more eco-friendly abrasive media and processes to reduce dust and waste emissions, optimising energy consumption and resource efficiency in the sandblasting process.
- Precision surface treatment: Further enhance the precise control of metal surface roughness, cleanliness, and shape to meet high-precision requirements.
- Combination of multiple surface treatments: Integrate sandblasting with other surface treatment processes (such as coating, electroplating, etc.) to create composite surface treatment techniques, further enhancing the performance of metal surfaces.
- Integration with new materials and coatings: Combine new materials with advanced coating technologies to optimise the surface characteristics after metal sandblasting, enhancing the wear resistance, corrosion resistance, and high-temperature tolerance of the coatings.
- Data-driven optimisation and predictive maintenance: Utilise data analysis and predictive maintenance technologies to achieve optimised management and fault prediction for sandblasting equipment, enhancing its reliability and operational efficiency.
- Ecological and sustainable development: Promote the evolution of metal sandblasting processes towards being more eco-friendly and sustainable, reducing energy consumption and environmental impact, in line with modern society’s demand for sustainable development.
Заключение
Metal sandblasting, as an important surface treatment process, plays a vital role and has wide applications in industrial production. By using high-pressure air to blast abrasives onto metal surfaces, metal sandblasting can thoroughly remove oxidation layers, dirt, and old coatings, providing a solid foundation for subsequent processes such as coating and electroplating. Conco Machining has established a stable and reliable supply chain network, working with excellent material suppliers to ensure we consistently deliver high-quality products and services. With extensive industry experience and technical expertise, we have earned a strong reputation in the metal sandblasting industry.
Overall, with advancements in technology and changing industrial demands, metal sandblasting processes will continue to evolve towards greater intelligence, environmental sustainability, precision, and multifunctionality, to meet the increasingly complex and diverse market needs and application scenarios.
