Sintering Behavior of Silica Filler Sands for Sliding Nozzle in a Ladle

Abstract

A study has been carried out to clarify the sintering behavior of silica filler sand. Sintering experiments were firstly conducted and the experimental data were compared with the thermodynamic calculations by FactSage and MELTS software.It was found that sintering of the silica sand proceeded through the evolution of liquid phases, which were originated from alkali feldspars. The liquid proportion was found to increase with an increase in temperature. It wan considered that the viscous liquid phases connecting silica particles contributed to the strength of the sintered sand. The thermodynamic calculations revealed that MELTS software could sufficiently simulate the phases in equilibrium with each other. The comparison of the experimental data with the thermodynamic simulations demonstrated that the whole system of the silica sand did not attain equilibrium. It was hence inferred that filler sands should be designed to prevent the state fully sintered by controlling the particle size.

Mechanism Study of the Blocking of Ladle Well Due to Sintering of Filler Sand

“…The properties of the sand and their sintering behaviors were studied. Some of these works focused only on the sintering of sand, while some of them considered also the interaction between liquid steel and sand . Due to the lack of systematic comparison, the effect of liquid steel on the sintering of sand is still not clearly understood.…”

Effects of Temperature and Holding Time on the Sintering of Ladle Filler Sand with Liquid Steel

“…The sintering behavior of the sand was investigated by a number of researchers. [4][5][6][7][8][9][10] Some of them studied the sintering of sand in the absence of steel, [4][5][6] while some studied the interaction behavior between sand and liquid steel. [7][8][9][10] In a previous study by the present authors, [11] a comparison between the sintering behaviors with and without steel was carried out at 1873 K. It was found that the presence of liquid steel could enhance the sintering of the sand and that dissolved elements, e.g., Mn have great impact on the sintering behavior.…”

“…[2,11] The industrial operation factors, such as temperature and ladle holding time, were also discussed in literatures. [1,4,6,12] However, most of those discussions were mainly based on statistics of industrial data. Little attention was paid to the mechanism of the sintering and to explaining systemically the effects of temperature and ladle holding time.…”

“…The sintering behavior of the sand was investigated by a number of researchers . Some of them studied the sintering of sand in the absence of steel, while some studied the interaction behavior between sand and liquid steel .…”

Analysis of Heat Insulation for Coil in the Electromagnetic Induction Controlled Automated Steel-Teeming System

“…Due to the use of nozzle sand during the steel-teeming process in continuous casting production, the steel cleanliness will be affected and the free opening rate of ladle cannot reach 100% [1][2][3]. Metallurgists [4][5][6] have done lots of work to reduce the pollution generated by nozzle sand to liquid steel and to improve the free opening rate, but they have not thoroughly avoided the use of nozzle sand.…”