Eaton Hydraulics, Eden Prairie, Minn., announced that its proprietary Eatonite Laser Clad coating technology was certified by DNV, an independent test services company, after fulfilling requirements stated in the “Guideline for qualification of wear and corrosion protection surface materials for piston rods,” developed as part of a Joint Industry Project (JIP).
“Eaton is the first, and to date the only, cylinder manufacturing company that has passed the JIP test requirements,” said Luis Garfias, Ph.D., director of Testing & Qualification for DNV’s Materials & Corrosion Technology Center in Columbus, Ohio.
“DNV-certified Eatonite laser coating technology is a significant breakthrough for upstream, offshore applications in the oil and gas industry,” said Astrid Mozes, vice president and general manager of Eaton’s Controls Division. “It will also provide new solutions in key industries like hydropower and virtually anywhere else piston rods are exposed to severe environmental corrosion.”
Piston rod samples made of SAE 4130 steel coated with Eatonite were tested at DNV laboratories in Hvik, Norway, and Columbus for a wide range of physical, mechanical, and electrochemical properties to evaluate the performance of the Eatonite coating against the JIP standard.
Alexander Bogicevic, Ph.D., of Eaton’s Innovation Center, Southfield, Mich., said “We developed the Eatonite laser coating technology to extend the life of piston rods used in hydraulic riser tensioning systems on offshore platforms. Many materials and processes were tested and the result of this multi-year development program was the Eatonite technology.
“After proprietary processing, the Eatonite material is twice as hard as conventional Inconel 625, a well-known corrosion resistant alloy, but it also has good cladding homogeneity due to novel laser technology to deposit the [coating]. Eatonite-clad rods combine the mechanical performance of traditional SAE 4130 steel piston rods with the corrosion resistance expected for corrosion-resistant alloys.”
For more information, visit www.eaton.com/hydraulics, or www.dnvcolumbus.com.
