In iron and steelmaking industry many engineering components are exposed to thermal and mechanical loads. Aim of this work is the characterisation of wear behaviour in the sinter crusher/sinter grate system at the sintering plant and to provide a facility to compare different wear resistant materials for lifetime extension. To detect wear mechanisms and operation temperature in real application a failure analysis of the sinter grate was done. For investigation of the thermal conditions in the sinter grate a FEM-simulation was done. To evaluate the critical oxidation temperature three wear resistant iron based alloys with different hardphase content were annealed under oxidising atmosphere up to 850°C. Erosion tests up to 650°C were done for comparison under similar mechanical conditions such as in sinter grate. To simulate normal impact wear an impact angle of 90° was selected and for the abrasion wear component the impact angle was defined to 30°. To clarify wear behaviour above the operational temperature soft annealing of the investigated alloys were done. Based on this work it was possible to demonstrate, that erosion tests and oxidation experiments are tools to evaluate wear behaviour of wear resistant materials at high temperatures. The results correlate with the knowledge from the failure analysis and the simulation of the high loaded component.