Hardox

hello,

i have recently heard about hardox being used with great success on robots such as TAN and dantomkia and was wondering what information you people could provide on it?

i do know thats its a type of steel wearplate and is heavier than stainless but thats about it.

One of its most interesting features is that it actually gets harder when beaten and is quite sturdy. But that is also the trouble: it is very difficult to cut (we use watercutting, lucky for us there is a company in Belgium who can do that), even more difficult to bend (where is that very very big press ?), quite heavy and you need special things to weld it with (not the ordinary welding sticks !). Mario will give more details this afternoon when he is back from work but this is what I could tell you now.

Notice that Supernova did not damage the armour of Mechaniac in the Worldchampionships. Helmut humbly confessed that it was the bolts holding the armour to the frame that gave way. Strategically placed, like on the back of the Dutch robot Pullverizer where Razer couldnt cut through (!!!) in last years Worldchampionships, it is very interesting.

I am now using Hardox 400 at 4mm thick in preference to grade 2 ti,cutting isnt a prob
it will bandsaw with work!and plasma cuts easily

tony (Bulldog)

well we use it on our cutters and for next year well only have to sharpen them slightly with an angle grinder

i wont tell u wot kind of punishment we put them through though

seeing Ian Lewiss face light up when he tried to bend a 3mm thick piece was interesting... wonder what that means?

A hernia?

hes a big girl..

Mario told me my explanation was good enough so he wouldnt add to it. I notice however that I forgot to mention one last thing: when you weld Hardox it becomes weaker at the welding spots. Slightly weaker.
It is hell for your drills and eats angle grinder plates by the kilos but it is still quite interesting to use.

Heres my unqualified or put in.....
Is Hardox heavier than its equivelent thickness in steel plate? And doesnt harder usually mean more brittle?

It is heavier than steel but it is not brittle. That is the most fascinating quality of Hardox: it only gets harder and harder with each blow. But not brittle.

That heavier is about 0.2kg dm³. It is as heavy as good stainless steel. So not a difference for most applications.
Except when following my creed)- who doesnt honor a gram, doesnt lose a kilo.

Ever eager to learn about new things Mario, whats the d in dm³ mean?

decimetre (10 centimetres) - 1 cubic decimetre is a litre.

ISO ISO I say.....they want to put everything in cubes of that dimension. In fact the ISO museum in Pantelon, France is full of cubes each with a description of their composition and mass in kg. They even have a Borg cube but its mass is irrelevant. It tried to assimilate a litre of water but blew out all its light bulbs. Anyway I digress.....

.....a bit of basic mental arithmatic tells me that Hardox is heavier by 800g/m² for 4mm plate and 600g/m² for 3mm (any comments about being basic and mental will be ignored)

This is the Hardox website. http://www.hardox.com/uk/http://www.hardox.com/uk/

The front ramming blade on Mighty Mouse is made from 8mm thick Weldox - it is as hard as hardox but is easier to weld.

Anyone who has felt the full force of the mouses blade will tell you it is tough.

It was finally bent this year by Mobot, I dont know the weight of the disc I rammed but it was petrol driven. I had the metal glowing red when trying to straighten it, and it took a sledgehammer to move it.

Trevor, weldox is not as hard as hardox. For example, the toughest Weldox availible at the moment is Weldox 1100 (which has a tensile strength of 1100N/mm2, hence the name). While Hardox 400 (which is the weakest hardox availible), has a tensile strength of 1000N/mm2.

If you then take a look at the hardness, youll see that Hardox 400 has a hardness of 400 HBW (hence the name), while Weldox 1100 doesnt even come close to this!

But thats only compared to Hardox 400, not Hardox 600 which would have been totally unfair.

so, does that mean that the new Dantomkia is quite tough? Being completely covered from the sides to the front?

Where could I get hold of some Hardox about 1700mm long and 1500mm wide by 3thk.

I need it in a hurry because the guy making the body is ready to cut out the bits but has run out of Domex 690 which I was going to use.

It needs to be clean and rust free or otherwise the supplier cant laser it out

Regards Richard
Team Mayhem

Hardox gets supplied with a coating against oxydizing, so clean.... we ran in thesame problem in the beginning.
Solved that by cutting it with a blowtorch and using a lot of anglegrinder disks.

Now we can let it waterjetted.

And 3mm.. Im afraid thats not a current available format. Maybe Paul Cooper can supply the 3.2mm

Richard,

3.2mm is not a standard thickness made by Hardox, but the 400 and 450 Grades can be obtained at this thickness. If you contact SSAB in Droitwich (01905-794722), they will give you the name of your nearest supplier.

Jeremy

I bought 3 sheets of Hardox 450 at 4mm thick for the front of Bulldog it is a lot heavier than grade 2 Titanium, but not as difficult to work with,thankfully,

Hey Tony is that new profile pic the new bulldog on the left? Judging from the thickness of the Ram, it looks pretty damn powerful.

Richard,

3.2mm is not a standard thickness made by Hardox, but the 400 and 450 Grades can be obtained at this thickness. If you contact SSAB in Droitwich (01905-794722), they will give you the name of your nearest supplier.

Jeremy

Thanks Guys

Ill contact SSAB

Richard

George that is one of the new rams, I have decided to have a choice of setups one 80 bore,
and the other two 50 bores, which are close coupled,the overall design is not for the Big Flip thats been done now,the design is a little different,
more a short vicious type of short flip,for this flipper speed is very important,so a short stroke
is the order of the day!:)

Ah, i see, so there is instead less of an emphasis on the Wheel Big Cheese style of getting in two big flips then dying out, rather to be like Chaos 2 and keep going the entire match on flipping, hence solving the usual flipper robots problem of starting strongly then dying out when you run out of gas. Sounds like a good idea to me!

yup:- nearly right :)

tony

Did Gravity suffer from a low amount of flips?

did the fights last long enough to find out lol:)

Yes, they did.

When Gravity was flipping Dead Metal it was obvious most of the power was gone. Not surprising though, since he flipped Lightening several times, and high, and hard. after it flipped shunt, you could see the flips are stil powerfull, but on the curve going down.

But on the whole, it still takes numerous flips before gravity cant flip anymore. I believe Mario told me Gravity is still able to selfright on 10 bar.

I didnt, but it isnt impossible, with 10 bar the 100mm ram still delivers 785 kg of trust for 180 mm.

being really broad here but what is the general price of hardox? ($ per unit of area)

No idea about the price in England, but it costs about £1 per kilo here in Sweden.

£1 per KG. I could live with that :proud:

Its amazingly cheap, isnt it?

The power going down after so many flips wasnt due to running out of Co2. Just running that much co2 whit that many leaks on board that fast into that big a ram, certainly cools down the lot... Most of the power loss was due to temperature changes. Tip to other builders : get the co2 out of your robot as fast as possible...

I cant find anyone who stocks Hardox or Weldox in Australia. Bisaloy (sp?) only comes in 5mm thick sheets.

A search at http://www.oxelosund.ssab.se/ssabox/en_index.htm gave this:

AUSTRALIA

SSAB Swedish Steel Pty Ltd, Brisbane
P.O. Box 8074
Woolloongabba (Brisbane)
QLD 4102 Australia

Tel: +61 - 7 - 3891 3533
Fax: +61 - 7 - 3891 3544
Mobile: +61 438 51 70 60


SSAB Swedish Steel Pty Ltd, Perth
P.O. Box 698
Hillarys (Perth)
WA 6923 Australia

Tel: +61 - 8 - 9381 8944
Fax: +61 - 8 - 9381 8012
Mobile: +61 417 975 782

Good luck!
Tomas

You have got to love the cityname in Brisbane, Woolloongabba. So cool :proud:.

And they sell Swedish high quality steel aswell...