Increase the Steels Purity Cast in Vacuum

Abstract

The need to develop products with special characteristics and high mechanical properties led to the introduction of plastic deformation of semifinished materials. Special purpose products are produced from slabs, blooms, billets or from different size ingots. One of the critical conditions to meet quality expectations after plastic deformation is that the material must be as high quality as possible. For refining steels, a range of methods have been developed that can remove harmful elements from the physical and mechanical product properties. For these products, the chosen casting method is one of the most important factors that can ensure product quality because casting can easily remove the beneficial effects of the refining process conducted during the development of the steel melt by contamination with refractory material from the casting assembly, re-oxidation of the metal bath and others. Depending on the complexity of the casting product and to obtain a superior quality product, several methods of casting have been developed.
The usual method of casting high quality large ingots is in vacuum, the advantage is that the steel stream is protected from the surrounding atmosphere, this paper aims to highlight the benefits of vacuum casting with wide stream on the improvement of ingot quality by increasing purity and decreasing gas content.