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Effect of slag on oxide inclusions in carburized bearing steel during industrial electroslag remelting

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Abstract

Industrial experiments with three types of slags were performed to investigate the effect of slag on oxide inclusions during electroslag remelting (ESR) process. G20CrNi2Mo bearing steel was used as the consumable electrode and remelted using a 2400-kg industrial furnace. The results showed that most inclusions in the electrode were low-melting-point CaO−MgO−Al2O3. After ESR, all the inclusions in ingots were located outside the liquid region. When the slag consisted of 65.70wt% CaF2, 28.58wt% Al2O3, and 4.42wt% CaO was used, pure Al2O3 were the dominant inclusions in ingot, some of which presented a clear trend of agglomeration. When the ingot was remelted by a multi-component slag with 16.83wt% CaO, a certain amount of sphere CaAl4O7 inclusions larger than 5 μm were generated in ingot. The slag with 8.18wt% CaO exhibited greater capacity to control the inclusion characteristics. Thermodynamic calculations indicated that the total Ca and Mg in ingots were attributed from the relics in electrode and strongly influenced by the slag composition. The formation of ingot inclusions was calculated by FactSageTM 7.0, and the results were basically in accordance with the observed inclusions, indicating that a quasi-thermodynamic equilibrium could be obtained in the metal pool.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by Xining Special Steel Plant and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51674024).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Advanced Metallurgy, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, 100083, China

    Shi-jian Li, Guo-guang Cheng & Zhi-qi Miao

  2. Xining Special Steel Group, Co., Ltd., Xining, 810005, China

    Lie Chen & Xin-yan Jiang

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  1. Shi-jian Li
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  2. Guo-guang Cheng
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Correspondence to Guo-guang Cheng.

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Li, Sj., Cheng, Gg., Miao, Zq. et al. Effect of slag on oxide inclusions in carburized bearing steel during industrial electroslag remelting. Int J Miner Metall Mater 26, 291–300 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12613-019-1737-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12613-019-1737-5

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