Abstract
The oxidation of Al and Ti in the electroslag remelting process causes an uneven axial composition of the electroslag ingot, which adversely affects its performance, including corrosion resistance and mechanical properties. To control the uniformity of Al and Ti content in electroslag ingots, it is necessary to clarify the change in Al and Ti content during the high-temperature electroslag remelting and to reduce the oxidation of Al and Ti in the alloy by optimizing the slag system ratio and smelting conditions. The research status of Al and Ti element control in the electroslag remelting process was reviewed based on the existing literature, taking the low-fluorine slag CaF2-CaO-Al2O3-MgO-TiO2 and Incoloy 825 alloy as examples. The ion and molecular coexistence theory of slag (IMCT) was used along with FactSage software to summarize the thermodynamic and kinetic research methods. The effects of temperature and components of slag on the equilibrium Al and Ti contents in the alloy were discussed. Based on the film-penetration theory, a kinetics model for predicting Al and Ti contents in the alloy was proposed, and the mathematical equation of the Al and Ti contents vs time in the electroslag process and the slag-metal reaction rate-limiting method were obtained. Results show that the optimum TiO2 addition during the electroslag remelting for Incoloy 825 alloy is determined to be approximately 10%. The slag-metal equilibrium experimental results were compared and analyzed using IMCT and FactSage. It is found that the FactSage calculation results are more accurate than the IMCT calculation results. The higher the TiO2 content, the smaller the deviation between the calculated and experimental results.
Science Press
Alloys and steels refined by electroslag remelting are commonly used in aerospace and petrochemical field
Current research methods of component content control in the electroslag process rely upon theoretical calculations combined with experimental verification. Researchers have proposed a large number of reaction models, including thermodynamic models, kinetic models, deoxidation models, and desulphurisation models, to predict the content changes of various component
4[Al]+3(TiO2)=3[Ti]+2(Al2O3) | (1) |
The Al2O3 content in the slag is high, and the Ti content in the high-titanium and low-aluminium alloy is much higher than the Al content, which causes the Ti element to be easily oxidized. At present, the focus of thermodynamics research is to determine the optimal amount of TiO2 in the slag when the content of Al and Ti in the alloy is controlled. However, the TiO2 content required for smelting is not only related to the type of alloy but also affected by the content of other components in the slag. For different alloys, the optimal TiO2 content in the slag is variable. The focus of kinetics research is to predict the distribution of Al and Ti elements in electroslag ingots based on actual electroslag process parameters and slag compositio
This paper summarizes the research progress on the control of Al and Ti content during the electroslag remelting process. In addition, based on the ion and molecular coexistence theory of slag (IMCT) and FactSage (GTT-Technologies, DE) software calculations, the changes in the equilibrium Al and Ti contents of the CaF2-CaO-Al2O3-MgO-TiO2 slag reaction with Incoloy 825 alloy were identified. The oxidation regularity of Al and Ti during the electroslag remelting of the Incoloy 825 alloy reveals the optimal TiO2 content in the slag. To provide theoretical guidance for the control of Al and Ti content in the process of electroslag remelting, a kinetic model for predicting Al and Ti contents was proposed based on the film permeation theory.
The thermodynamic calculation of Al and Ti contents during the electroslag remelting process can provide theoretical support for the slag system design, and the key in the calculation is the component activity in the slag. The reaction of Al and Ti vs Al2O3 and TiO2 in the slag during the electroslag remelting process under the protection of argon has been shown in
(2) |
where and are the activities of Al and Ti in the alloy, and and are the activities of TiO2 and Al2O3 in the slag, respectively; the coefficients and are the activity coefficients of Al and Ti elements, respectively, and are calculated using Wagner's equation in the alloy with 1% as the standard state, as shown in
(3) |
where represents the activity coefficient of element i in the alloy; represents the activity interaction coefficient of element j with respect to element i in the alloy. The activity interaction coefficients of the components in the alloy are listed in
According to the theoretical assumption of IMCT, the structural units existing in the slag system include four simple ions of C
(4) |
(5) |
(6) |
(7) |
(8) |
(9) |
FactSage 7.3 thermodynamic software was used to calculate the Al2O3 and TiO2 activities in the slag at 1773 K. The FactPS and FToxid databases were used in the software. The pure solid standard state was selected for the calculation results.
The expressions of the equilibrium Al and Ti contents in the alloy are shown in
(10) |
(11) |
where and are the initial Ti and Al contents in the alloy, and and are the equilibrium Ti and Al contents in the alloy, respectively.
A thermodynamic study of the electroslag remelting process can obtain the equilibrium Al and Ti content in the alloy at the end of the slag-metal reaction under the condition that the alloy and slag compositions are fixed. It is usually used to determine the optimal amount of TiO2 in the slag to provide a theoretical basis for further research. Pateisky et a

Fig.10 Mass transfer diagram of slag-metal interface

According to



From Fig.2a, 2b, 3a and 3b, it can be observed that as the slag increases (0% to 35%), the equilibrium Ti content in the alloy decreases significantly, and the Al content increases significantly. When the content of Al or CaO is less than 15%, the degree of influence is Al2O3>CaO, but the loss of the equilibrium Ti content in the alloy is significantly slowed as the content of Al2O3 increases to larger than 15wt%. This is because as the Al2O3 content increases to 15wt%, the reaction between Al2O3 and CaO is strengthened, the activity of Al2O3 in the slag decreases, and the reaction strength of Al2O3 and Ti in the alloy is reduced, causing a decrease in the Ti content. Jiang et a

From Fig.2c~2e and Fig.3c~3e, one can see that as the content of TiO2, CaF2, and MgO in the slag increases, the content of Ti in the alloy increases, and the content of Al decreases. The relative magnitudes of their effects are TiO2>CaF2>MgO. Increasing the TiO2 content can significantly inhibit the loss of Ti in the alloy. This is due to the increased reactivity of the TiO2 content with Al in the alloy. The Al in the alloy is oxidized to Al2O3 in the slag, and the Ti is reduced in the alloy. However, the initial Al and Ti contents in different alloys differ, and the optimal TiO2 addition also differs. Duan et a

but also reduce the viscosity of the sla
Comparing the calculated results of IMCT with those of FactSage in Fig.2 and Fig.3, it is observed that the oxidation of Ti in the alloy is greater than that obtained using FactSage. As can be seen from Fig.2c and Fig.3c, the FactSage results show that the optimal TiO2 content for controlling Al and Ti content in the alloy at 1773 K is 10%, while the IMCT calculation results show that it is 12%. The higher calculated result of IMCT indicates that the Ti element in the alloy has excessive loss when calculated by IMCT. In a previous study, the author conducted a high-temperature slag-metal equilibrium experiment on CaF2-CaO-Al2O3-MgO-Li2O-TiO2 low-fluorine slag and Incoloy 825 alloy at 1773


A kinetic study of the electroslag remelting process was used to predict the changes in the Al and Ti elements in the alloy. In the industrial electroslag process, the slag-metal reaction is more complicated and the thermodynamic applicability is reduced, but analysis is conducted mainly using kinetics. The mass transfer process of Al, Ti, TiO2, and Al2O3 during the electroslag remelting process is shown in
The mass transfer of slag and alloy components occurs in three regions of the slag, i.e. the metal interface at the electrode tip, the droplet-slag interface in the process of droplet dropping, and the molten metal pool-slag interface. The reaction formulas of Al and Ti in the alloy with Al2O3 and TiO2 in the slag are as shown in
(12) |
(13) |
The expressions for the equilibrium constants are shown in
(14) |
(15) |
According to the film-penetration theory, the diffusion flux of component i can be expressed as
(16) |
where is the diffusion flux of i; and are the mass tran-sfer coefficients of i and iOx in the alloy and slag, respectively; and are the relative atomic masses of i and iOx, respec-tively; and are the densities of the alloy and slag, respec-tively; and are the interfacial concentrations of the components in the molten alloy and slag, respectively.
According to
(17) |
(18) |
where is the interface oxygen activity and is the equilibrium constant. The activity coefficient of the components in the alloy, , and the activity coefficient of component in the slag, , are calculated using
(19) |
(20) |
where and are the first-order and second-order interaction parameters in the alloy, respectively. The first-order interac-tion coefficients are listed in
(21) |
(22) |
(23) |
(24) |
where is the mass of molten steel and is the comprehensive mass transfer coefficient. The interfacial oxygen activity can be determined according to the mass conservation of elements at the interface, as shown in
(25) |
According to Eq.(
(26) |
(27) |
According to the conservation of mass, the contents of Al2O3 and TiO2 in the slag can be obtained. The mass transfer coefficients for different regions are obtained using
(28) |
(29) |
where and are the diffusion coefficients of the components in the alloy and slag, respectively, and t is the slag-metal reaction time at different reaction regions. The values of the diffusion coefficients are listed in
The mathematical expressions for calculating the mass transfer resistance of the Al and Ti elements in the alloy and Al2O3 and TiO2 in the slag are shown in
According to the above kinetic model results, the change of Al and Ti elements in the ingot during the electroslag remelting process can be predicted. This reduces the experiment cost, and clarifies the control factors of Al and Ti content in the reaction process, as well as the rate-determining step in the slag-metal reaction process. It can provide theoretical guidance for improving the technology conditions of electroslag remelting.
Fig.11 Variation of Ti content in consumable electrodes and electroslag ingot
Fraser et a

of the Al+Al2O3, Ti+TiO2, and Fe+FeO systems in the electroslag process based on the results of Fraser's research, and predicted the Al, Ti, and Al2O3 and TiO2 contents in the steel in the electroslag remelting process. The composition change of the ingot is in good agreement with the experimental results. Wei et a
Fig.11 illustrates that even under the optimal process conditions and slag system, Ti loss inevitably occurs in the ingot. This may be due to the complex environment in the actual electroslag process and the difficulty of imposing stable controls in the process. In the initial heating stage, particularly, the fluctuation range of metal elements is relatively large. Therefore, it is necessary to use the kinetic method in the electroslag remelting process to further explore improvements in process conditions. Our current kinetic model considers relatively few actual factors, and more accurate models are needed for the future development processes. However, our model more closely represents the actual process, which not only helps to have a clearer and deeper understanding of the entire electroslag remelting process, but also further optimizes the process parameters and slag system ratio, and more accurately controls the Al and Ti content.
1) Based on previous research, our study summarizes the thermodynamic and kinetic methods to control the Al and Ti content in the process of electroslag remelting. The results of the thermodynamic calculations indicate that an increase in temperature increases the oxidation of Ti and inhibits the oxidation of Al.
2) The increase in CaO and Al2O3 content in the slag increases the oxidation of Ti; however, when the Al2O3 content is greater than 15%, the oxidation of Ti in the alloy becomes weaker. The higher content of CaO and Al2O3 in the low-fluorine slag system requires addition of more TiO2 to inhibit the oxidation of Ti in the alloy. Increasing the TiO2 content significantly inhibits Ti oxidation, but different alloys require different amounts of TiO2.
3) The FactSage calculation result has a small deviation from the slag-metal equilibrium experiment result, while the IMCT calculation result is slightly larger than the experimental result. As the TiO2 content in the slag increases, the calculation results are closer to the experimental results. Based on the film-penetration theory, a kinetic model is proposed for the process of electroslag remelting, and the mathematical expressions for the change in the Al and Ti element content and the rate-determining step in the process of electroslag remelting can be obtained.
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