Meet the Staff - John Hadjioannou

Meet the Staff! Once a week for the next couple of months, we will be introducing the people who work here at EPI Materials Testing Group.

This week we will be introducing the man who runs the show here at EPI MTG, John Hadjioannou. John started running EPI Materials Testing Group as the director back in 2006. Every year since, John has expanded EPI MTG's Capabilities, personnel, and clients. Along with handling the business end of EPI MTG, John is a licensed Professional Engineer. He helps clients all over the world with their failure analysis, litigation cases, and other issues.

He has made Quality a top priority of EPI MTG'. Every report that is produced by EPI MTG is reviewed by John. Since John has taken over EPI MTG, the business has continued to expand and garner new clients every year and achieve record revenues almost every year. The BBB (Better Business Bureau) has also given EPI MTG an A+ rating since John has taken over.

ASTM G105 Wear Test

EPI Materials Testing group does custom wear testing and three standardized wear tests for their clients, ASTM G65, G105, and B611. The mass of the test specimens are recorded before and after each test. The mass loss is then converted to volume loss due to the range of densities in materials.

The G105 test is an ASTM 'Standard Test Method for Conducting Wet Sand/Rubber Wheel Abrasion Tests'. Figure one shows you what the test setup is like. The test runs with a 7" steel wheel with a layer of rubber at 50-shore hardness to start with. After the initial test, the test runs again three more times on the same wear scar with a 50-shore hardness wheel, a 60-shore hardness wheel, and a 70-shore hardness wheel, in that order. This test is usually run on Carbide overlays with high hardness values or coating layers made of very hard metals such as titanium. A typical wear scar is shown below (Figure 2).

(Figure 1 from ASTM G105 Spec)

Fig. 2 - Typical Wear Scar

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The longevity of a material is very important in the oil industry. With everything that attacks materials in down hole environments, companies have their hands full keeping their tools in good shape. One of the systems that have been in use over the years is hardbanding. Hardbanding is a layer typically added to the outer diameter of drill pipe and other tools. The hardbanding is welded on to the pipe or tool and is usually infused with carbide. These thicker bands around the pipe protect the softer pipe metal from contacting the walls and rocks down hole, thus prolonging their useful life spans. The carbide layer helps make companies drill pipe and other tools last much longer, saving them millions of dollars in the end.

A good way to test and compare these hardbanding applications is with wear testing. EPI Materials testing group uses three ASTM specs and custom testing to help companies get the most out of there hardbanding applications. The ASTM specs are G65, G105 and B611. The three specs all use the same apparatus, but use different wheels, applied forces, duration of the test, and some even use a slurry mix to make the test more abrasive. The test involves sand flowing onto a specimen while a wheel spins against it with a certain applied load. Wear testing has been used to test other materials as well including base materials, thermal sprays, and just about anything else when custom testing.

A picture of typical hardbanding and the wear testing apparatus are shown below.

Want to see something we do? Have a question about something?

Let us know in the comments and we will give you an answer or even write about it!