Page 23 - Vicinay Cadenas

The 1000 frontier

Vicinay, in collaboration with Gerdau Sidenor It has been one of Vicinay’s major commitments
and the University of the Basque Country, has to investigate this phenomenon. Backed by the
in recent years invested considerable resources University of Cantabria and various technology
into the development of higher strength chain centers in the Basque Country, we made a
qualities. We are investigating steels with over series of tests. In one program we carried out
1000 Mpa break resistance and from 2005 have slow controlled traction tests to qualitatively
been making R5 chain. Not content with this, compare the various grades. In another, we
however, we are looking to manufacture R6 quantified the response of the steels using the
with a resistance of over 1200 Mpa. parameters of Fracture Mechanics. In every
The development of these new steels builds on case, R5 behaved in a similar way to the lower
our success with the lower grades and opens up steels indicating that it is no more susceptible
many advantages to the industry, such as: to hydrogen embrittlement than other grades.
This has encouraged us to explore the 1000
Reduction in mooring line weight which in frontier further.
turn reduces production tonnage and our
manufacturing footprint. R5

Better resistance to wear.
Increased fatigue life.
These developments have been subjected
to various tests. Among these, one of the
most innovative has been the study of chains’
fatigue behaviour on a gigacycle test run,
(1,000,000,000 cycles). The results have been
published in a doctoral thesis at the University
of Bordeaux.
Nonetheless, it is known that high strength
metals run the risk of hydrogen embrittlement.

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