Wettability between liquid iron and tundish lining refractory

School of Metallurgical and Ecological Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, P.R. China
e-mail: zhanglifeng@ustb.edu.cn

Received: 21 April 2016
Accepted: 19 May 2016

Abstract

In the current study, the wettability between liquid iron and lining refractory of a continuous casting tundish was investigated. In the sample preparation process, liquid phase was generated during sintering, and CaMgSiO₄ and Mg₂SiO₄ were precipitated during cooling. The phase transition from solid state to liquid state during the measurement of contact angle lead to the increase of surface roughness. The increase of surface roughness contributed to the increase of contact angle in a short interval. A bigger contact angle would be achieved on a rougher surface. The contact angle between liquid iron and refractory substrates with relatively rough surface was approximately 112.6° at 1550 °C and 107.7° at 1626 °C. When the pure iron melted and covered the surface of substrate, open pores on the surface were not filled by the liquid iron. At the three-phase contact line in the pore, there existed a local contact angle. The average value of the local contact angle was 113.3°, which was close to the measured macro-contact angle. In the second phase rich area, liquid iron penetrated into substrate through pores, the average penetration depth was approximately 140 μm.