Magnetically controlled melting of a metal

A. Bartulis¹ - Ya. Kompan² - V. N. Kremenetsky¹ - E. V. Shcherbinin¹

¹ University of Latvia, Institute of Physics, Salaspils-1, LV-2169, Latvia
² Paton Institute of Electrowelding, Kiev, Ukraine

Abstract
One of the methods to produce ingots of metal in electroslag technology is to remelt a thick electrode (its diameter is close to the diameter of electroslag bath). In this case the density of electric current in the slag bath is not enough for quick melting of the electrode and it is necessary to add particles containing the remelted metal. These particles going through the chemically active slag at high temperature are melted and purified from inclusions. If a hard particle gets into the liquid metal this make the quality of an ingot worse. That is why it is necessary to know the behavior of particles to choose the maximum allowed size of particles for the slag with the given chemical activity or to choose the slag for the given size of particles. A more prospective method is the method that permits to control the movement of particles and time of their stay in the slag bath. The existence of a technologically needed electric current leads to the idea to use external magnetic fields to implement the process. The properly organized field of electromagnetic force can not only help to control the movement of particles, but also to force mixing of the melt. The application of the magnetic field of the sys-tem of rings with the electric current placed around the slag bath is offered as a possi-ble method to control the melting process. The radial component of the magnetic field of such system interacting with the axial electric current rotates both the slag and the liquid metal in electroslag unit and also rotates particles supplied into the slag.Table 2, Figs 7, Refs 5.