The Spontaneous Emulsification of Entrained Inclusions During Casting of High Aluminum Steels

The cleanliness of liquid steel is defined by the amounts of dissolved unwanted impurities and precipitated unwanted non-metallic phases.[…] Improving the cleanliness of the steel would mean a lower fraction of impurities in the final product. […] A novel approach, utilizing controlled synthetic inclusion/metal samples, has been developed to study the reactions between free inclusion-slag droplets and steel. The technique combines High-Temperature Confocal Scanning Laser Microscopy (HT-CSLM), X-ray Computed Tomography (XCT) and advanced electron microscopy techniques offering rapid controlled heating performance and extensive characterization of the samples. This method offers the ability to observe the size, shape and composition of an unconstrained reacting inclusion and to investigate the interface between the materials with respect to reaction time.