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How Abraservice Conquered the Challenges of Bending High-Strength, Abrasion-Resistant Steels

In heavy industries like mining, quarrying, cement production, and recycling, machinery is constantly subjected to extreme impact, friction, and wear. To prevent catastrophic failure and progressive material loss, wear parts—such as heavy excavator bucket liners, screens, and dredging pipes—must be fabricated from highly specialized, abrasion-resistant (AR) steels and overlays.

Story overview

Abraservice LLC is a premier partner in the metal processing industry, renowned for distributing and processing high-strength, abrasion-resistant (AR) steels. Operating from their 60,000-sq.-ft. Alabama service center, the company manufactures crucial wear parts for demanding industries like mining, quarrying, and dredging. Tackling tough materials requires machines that can withstand the extreme demands of heavy-duty fabrication.

Website

www.abraservice.com/en

Location

UNITED STATES

Industry

Jobshop & Metal Structures , Mining & Earth Moving , Oil & Gas and Nuclear

Severe Force Requirements and Bending Limits of AR Steel

Because of their high carbon content and alloying elements, abrasion-resistant steels are exceptionally hard and tough. Bending these materials requires immense force and precision. Without the right equipment, fabricators face a high risk of cracking the plates or compromising their metallurgical properties.

Abraservice reached a technical bottleneck when they began receiving customer orders for large, heavy-duty wear parts that exceeded the limits of their existing 600-ton press brake. To fulfill these orders, the company had to outsource their heavy bending operations. This added significant transit time, increased costs, and compromised their ability to offer the fast turnaround times their customers relied on.

To bring these critical jobs back in-house, regain control over their production queue, and expand their technical capabilities, Abraservice needed a bending solution engineered to handle the extreme physical demands of high-yield AR steels.

The Solution

Davi MAV Variable Axis 3-Roll Technology

To resolve this bottleneck, Abraservice partnered with Davi and installed the Davi MAV N-30 three-roll variable axis plate rolling machine.

Conceptually operating like a highly flexible press brake, the MAV N-30 allows for individual, horizontal movement of both side rolls and vertical movement of the top roll. This variable interaxis geometry allows the machine to adjust the distance between the lower rolls dynamically, maximizing leverage and dramatically reducing the tonnage required to form thick, high-yield materials.

Several technical features made the MAV N-30 the ideal solution for Abraservice’s demanding application:

All-Rolls-Drive & Ideal Torque Transmission: Motorized top and side rolls guarantee optimum torque distribution to the plate, eliminating the risk of material slippage or falling during pre-bending. This enables the operator to position the plate precisely at the tangent point to achieve the shortest possible flat end.
Extreme Material Versatility: The MAV N-30 provides Abraservice with the capacity to bend materials ranging from 2.5 to 10 inches (63.5 to 254 mm) in thickness. The facility regularly uses the machine to roll up to 4-inch (101.6 mm) thick, 30-inch (762 mm) wide Hardox wear plate, mild steel plate up to 2.5 inches (63.5 mm) thick and 10 feet (3.05 m) wide, and 3-to-4-inch (76.2 to 101.6 mm) thick plate up to 4 feet (1.22 m) wide.
Mechanical & Hydraulic Symmetry: To achieve exact workpiece dimensional tolerances, the MAV is designed with complete mechanical and hydraulic symmetry. This ensures an even load distribution along the entire forming width of the plate, preventing distortion even when working with highly rigid materials.
Patented Servo-Tronic System: By managing oil flow and pressure through dedicated pumping groups and electro-valves, the Servo-Tronic system keeps the rolls perfectly parallel at all times. This dual mechanical and hydraulic control provides maximum positioning accuracy and operational redundancy.

The Results

Elimination of Outsourcing

Bringing the heavy bending process in-house allowed Abraservice to reclaim control over their manufacturing timeline, safeguard their profit margins, and guarantee consistent, certified quality.

Rapid Lead Times

High production demands are met with ease. Depending on the complexity of the part, Abraservice now offers a remarkable one-week turnaround time on formed and rolled wear parts.

Dramatic Labor and Tonnage Savings

Attempting to form heavy AR steel bucket liners on a press brake typically requires four times the tonnage and at least two operators. With the Davi MAV N-30, a single operator can efficiently manage the entire process, significantly optimizing workshop safety and manpower.

Multi-Radius Versatility

The machine’s extreme flexibility allows Abraservice to roll complex parts like large bucket liners (ranging from 10 to 42 cubic yards / 7.65 to 32.1 m³ in volume) that require up to four different radius changes during a single continuous bending sequence.

Overcoming the Skill Gap

With an intuitive, easy-to-read CNC screen, operators can easily monitor and follow the bending radius. This user-friendly interface facilitates in-house training, helping Abraservice quickly upskill new operators to handle complex, specialized forming tasks.

For over 50 years, Abraservice LLC, a proud member of the Hardox Wearparts network, has provided durable wear solutions and custom-engineered parts from its 60,000-square-foot (5,574 m²) facility in Alabama. However, fabricating high-performance materials like Hardox 450, Hardox 500 Tuf, and chromium overlay plates comes with severe manufacturing challenges.

Over Five Years of Unmatched Reliability
Installed in 2020, the Davi MAV N-30 has been operating between four and six hours a day for over five years at Abraservice's Alabama service center. Throughout this intensive operational lifespan, forming some of the toughest, most abrasive materials in the steel industry, the MAV N-30 has proven to be exceptionally rugged and reliable, delivering high-precision parts with minimal error. Supported by Davi’s extensive North American service and logistics network—including dedicated centers across Illinois, Kansas, Texas, and Arizona—Abraservice continues to deliver high-performance, custom wear parts with absolute confidence.