Authors:
Shigefumi Matsumoto | Krosaki Harima Corporation | Japan
Keisuke Yamada | Krosaki Harima Corporation | Japan
Tetsuo Igata | Krosaki Harima Corporation | Japan
Ryohei Kometani | Krosaki Harima Corporation | Japan
Masaki Yamamoto | Krosaki Harima Corporation | Japan
Dr. Koji Goda | Krosaki Harima Corporation | Japan
Katsumi Morikawa | Krosaki Harima Corporation | Japan
H. Fukuyama | Tohoku University | Japan
In steel making process, refractories called porous bricks have been used as gas purging plugs. The plugs installed in bottom of ladle holding molten steel have a role to blow gas into the steel, however, the blowing must be interrupted at some occasions pursuing operations like casting. In such occasion, since the porous bricks have received a head pressure of the molten steel in the ladle, infiltration of metal into the brick prompt to clog pores in the bricks with preventing gas blowing from them. The metal infiltration must be suppressed to a lesser extent as possible from aspect of service life of the bricks. To control the extent of the infiltration, effect of structural feature of the bricks on the metal infiltration phenomena has investigated comprehensively. Using X-ray computed tomography, three-dimensional structure of the porous bricks was photographed and visualized by reconstructing the tomographic images obtained. Detected distinction between brick material and pore portion in the CT image by difference in the X-ray absorbance, resulted in numerical analysis on the determinations of pore size, its distribution and etc. Through the simulation of molten steel infiltration process using the computational fluid dynamics, it was also clarified that the infiltration rate changed with depending on size of pore in the bricks, with showing how featured the infiltrating process for each structure of the bricks. Thus, the methodology adopted is useful for developing the bricks with prolonged service life, since it can simulate the metal infiltration occurring in the actual operations.