A Study on the Correlation between Ladle Glaze and Non-Metallic Inclusions in the Ladle Treatment

Abstract: In the present thesis, the correlation between ladle glaze and non-metallic inclusions in the ladle treatment was studied. A number of industrial trials with full scale ladle and laboratory works were performed to investigate the inclusions in the ladle treatment.BaO was used as tracer in the ladle slag to investigate the effect of slag on inclusion composition and the formation of non-metallic inclusions by ladle glaze. BaO was detected in the inclusions of all followed heats. This observation showed strong evidence for the generation of non-metallic inclusions by the ladle glaze. The increase of the fractions of BaO containing inclusions and their average content of BaO in the first heat with tracer suggested that the effect of slag on the composition of inclusions was a very slow process.The detachment of ladle glaze and the chemical transformations of oxide solution in the MgO matrix were investigated. The experimental results evidently showed that the ladle glaze could be the source of inclusions continually during the ladle treatment. Samples of liquid oxide solution to simulate the liquid oxide inclusions carried over from EAF were equilibrated with molten steel under controlled atmosphere. The results along with thermodynamic calculation suggested that the SiO2 content of inclusions from EAF could be considerably reduced by dissolved aluminium in the steel. This would explain the vanishing of inclusions containing high SiO2 content after deoxidation.Due to the lack of experimental data, the viscosities of slags in the Al2O3-CaO-MgO-SiO2 system were measured using the rotating cylinder method in the temperature range of 1720 to 1910 K. Eight different slag compositions related to the secondary steel making operations were selected. Viscosities in this system and its sub-systems were expressed as a function of temperature and composition based on the viscosity model developed earlier at KTH.The activities of oxide components in the Al2O3-CaO-MgO-SiO2 systems at 1873 K were measured by equilibrating liquid slag and metal. Either silicon or copper was used as the metal phase and the oxygen partial pressure was controlled with different mixing rates of Ar and CO gas flow in equilibrium with graphite. Iso-activity lines were drawn from the measured activity values in the isothermal section of the slag systems.Nine series of industrial trials were carried out using the same ladle in each series to examine the effect of ladle slag on the number of non-metallic inclusions in the next heat. It was found that the number of inclusions increased with SiO2 content of the ladle slag in the previous heat. No clear trends were found for the effects of viscosity and MgO activity of the previous slag on the number of inclusions. Theoretical analysis based on the experimental results suggested that the formation of 2CaO∙SiO2 followed but the dusting of the compound made the refractory more porous, which was reasonable for the number of non-metallic inclusions.