Formation and Control of Inclusions during Steelmaking Process

Abstract

The variation of non-metallic inclusions and total oxygen contents in different steel grades were investigated by taking samples in steelmaking process, including gear steel, anchor chain steel, hard wire steel, bearing steel and spring steel. The inclusions mainly were Al2O3, MnS, and their composite inclusions in aluminum killed steel at the beginning of LF refining due to addition of FeAl alloy during the tapping from EAF and feeding of Al wire in LF process, and then Al2O3 inclusion changed to the Al2O3 - CaO composite inclusions after feeding of SiCa wire. The inclusions at the beginning of LF refining mainly were MnS, SiC and their composite inclusions in non-aluminum killed steel due to addition of the composite deoxidation and slagging agents (mainly including CaC2 and SiC) when EAF taping, while the inclusions in tundish mainly were MnS, CaO - SiO2 - Al2O3 composite oxide - sulfide inclusions. It is showed that the inclusions in bearing steel and spring steel samples were mainly globular oxide inclusions and silicate inclusions with higher rated results. Therefore, the refining process should be improved to remove globular oxide inclusions. The inclusions in molten steel were controlled by enhancing the diffusion deoxidation process, adjusting and controlling the basicity and composition of refining slags, respectively, and satisfactory results were obtained. The industrial test shows that the total oxygen content of the aluminum killed steel in the test heat after feeding wire reached the minimum value, which indicates that the optimized slag has a strong ability of absorbing Al2O3 inclusions. For non-aluminum killed steel, the total oxygen content was 0.0027 % to 0.0029 % in rolled products. The inclusions in the end of refining and rolled product were small and dispersed composite inclusions, and the separate Al2O3 inclusions can not be found in the non-aluminum killed steel after optimization of the refining process.