A loader bucket made in extra-tough Hardox® 500 Tuf steel

Hardox® 500 Tuf steel in buckets - makes buckets tough on wear

Hardox® 500 Tuf is a game-changer in bucket and attachment design. Think that buckets need to be heavy to be strong? Think again. Hardox® 500 Tuf proves that high strength and lower weight go hand in hand.

A Fronteq loader bucket attachment made in Hardox® 500 Tuf steel, doing some tough digging of hard and abrasive rocks.

Less steel and more performance with Hardox® 500 Tuf

With Hardox® 500 Tuf, your buckets get high productivity and long-lasting durability in combination with high strength and low weight. By leveraging the benefits of Hardox® 500 Tuf, you can reduce bucket weight while getting a larger bucket with higher loading capacity – meaning more work done in less time. This goes for all kinds of buckets, whether used in quarries or mines, in road construction, as wheel or track excavators, on front or backhoe loaders, or in surface or underground mining operations.

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Hardox® 500 Tuf for real savings in operation and production

*Based on real-life data: The examples of savings by upgrading to Hardox® 500 Tuf are based on a 4 m3 excavator bucket consuming a minimum of 40 l/h and running approximately 2.000 h/ year. The lighter bucket will reduce the fuel consumption by 3% p.a. at a minimum. Increased load capacity and other benefits in operation and production are the result of optimizing the material thicknesses in the bucket, and reducing the wear protection of the bucket.

Black and white image of a huge excavator bucket made in Hardox® wear plate in the sky.

Smarter bucket design comes natural with Hardox® 500 Tuf

Hardox® 500 Tuf wear steel allows for a smarter approach to loader and excavator bucket design. By manufacturing the entire body in wear-resistant Hardox® 500 Tuf, you can reduce the amount of liners and other wear packages, which add a lot of weight and make production more complicated. Fewer parts need to be manufactured. Less welding saves time and costs. The bucket becomes lighter and still has outstanding structural integrity.

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See how leading bucket and attachment OEMs break new ground with Hardox® 500 Tuf

ABL powers progress with Hardox® 500 Tuf

When ABL Construction Equipment in Sweden stepped up to Hardox® 500 Tuf from a 450 HBW steel in their line of front loader and excavator buckets, customers got a quantum leap in service life: up to 40% longer.

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HYPER Buckets from Sjørring add productivity in a lightweight package

What a difference an upgrade makes. When Sjørring switched from Hardox® 450 to Hardox® 500 Tuf in their new bucket range, they reduced bucket weight and fuel use, and got more load capacity and higher performance.

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A lifetime of building better buckets leads to Hardox® 500 Tuf

Read the story of a young man in his garage who dreamed of building better excavator buckets and became a devoted fan of Hardox® 500 Tuf steel.

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How heavy-duty buckets in Hardox® 500 Tuf make the toughest jobs easier

Excavator buckets from Fronteq (formerly Götene Ufo) in Hardox® 500 Tuf break new ground for contractors looking for maximum capacity, volume and durability in the most severe environments – and gain up to 8% in weight savings.

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Excavator bucket attachments made in Hardox® 500 Tuf, ready for a hard day’s work

Excavator bucket attachments made in Hardox® 500 Tuf, ready for a hard day’s work

Sjørring, the Danish bucket manufacturer, prides itself on delivering custom loader buckets to big-name equipment brands like Volvo CE, Hitachi Construction Machinery, Epiroc and Doosan Infracore Europe. A leading manufacturer of wheel loader buckets in Europe, they build more than 3,500 buckets each year. When the company decided to design a super-optimized line of low-weight excavator buckets, they turned to SSAB – and Hardox® 500 Tuf – for a solution.

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A wheel loader made in Hardox® steel in a quarry carrying a gigantic rock

New Hardox® 500 Tuf wear steel helps heavy-duty bucket manufacturer Winkelbauer get tough on wear

Winkelbauer GmbH in Austria is a leading supplier of heavy-duty buckets and other construction equipment for the European market. The company is an early adopter of SSAB’s new wear-resistant steel grade Hardox® 500 Tuf. Upgrading to this material allows Winkelbauer’s customers to load more and extend the service life of their equipment.

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Excavator bucket manufacturer ChangWoon goes for 100% Hardox® 500 Tuf to save weight and extend service life

Think it’s impossible to reduce a bucket’s steel gauge thickness yet boost service life? Think again. ChangWoon switched from S45C (S355, G50) steel to Hardox® 500 Tuf, in some cases extending wear life up to 400%.

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Canadian manufacturer uses Hardox® 500 Tuf to build a better heavy-duty bucket for quarries, recycling operations and municipalities.

AMI Attachments’ 2-Pass bucket multiplies productivity, delivering high capacity

It’s a simple but profitable concept - reduce cycle time to increase productivity. This is exactly what the new 2-Pass Bucket from Ontario, Canada’s AMI Attachments achieves by filling trucks in just two 9.14-meter (10-yard) bucketful’s, thanks to the use of both Hardox® wear plate and Strenx® performance steels.

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Longer life time with Hardox® 500 Tuf wear plate

The hardness of Hardox® 500 Tuf is more than 10% higher compared to Hardox® 450. And since wear resistance isn’t a linear phenomenon, the increase in hardness can give an increase in wear life as high as 50% – of course depending on the abrasive material and the operating conditions. If you are looking for a longer lasting bucket or other attachment, look no further than Hardox® 500 Tuf.

Close-up of an enormous rock crashing on a steel plate made in Hardox® 500 Tuf steel. The plate bends but shows outstanding impact resistance.

The world’s hardest wear steel with structural properties

Hardox® 500 Tuf is hard and tough enough to function as a structural steel. The steel has a guaranteed hardness interval of 475-505 HBW for high wear resistance in the most challenging abrasive applications, and a typical yield strength of 1250- 1400 MPa. Thanks to its high toughness, with a guaranteed impact energy of 27 J at -20°C (20 ft-lb at -4°F) and a typical value of 45 J at -40°C (33 ft-lb at -40°F), it performs well in every climate, and even better for equipment operating in freezing conditions.

Get all the hard facts on upgrading to Hardox® 500 Tuf
A piece of Hardox® 500 Tuf steel being processed in the workshop.

Hardox® 500 Tuf is workshop friendly

When processing Hardox® 500 Tuf, you can expect this wear steel to deliver predictable performance. Hardox® 500 Tuf has guaranteed flatness and thickness tolerances and bending properties. This ensures cost-efficiency and product quality in the workshop. Using thinner dimensions means less bending force is required.

The guarantees that make Hardox® steel special
Two technical support workers from SSAB discussing how to optimize Hardox® 500 Tuf wear steel in an excavator bucket.

Technical support included

Our experienced Tech Support teams stand ready to give advice on steel choice and processing of Hardox® 500 Tuf. Technical support is available in your local language or in English in all markets.

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Optimize your use of Hardox® 500 Tuf

Calculate your service life for all kinds of materials

With Hardox® WearCalc software from SSAB, you can calculate and determine the increase in service life of equipment made in Hardox® 500 Tuf compared with generic AR steel with lower hardness values.

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Try it out!

Get your hands on a piece of the real thing and see how Hardox® 500 Tuf can boost your products’ performance.

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Welding data for Hardox® wear plate in your pocket

WeldCalc™ is a welding tool for smartphones and desktop. It allows you to optimize welding performance based on welding conditions, steel thickness and other parameters.

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