A new approach for the study of slag–metal interface in steelmaking

The main focus of the present work was to develop a sampler to obtain the physical description of the slag–metal interface in the presence of bulk flow. Industrial trial experiments were carried out in the ladles at Uddeholm Tooling, Hagfors, Sweden using the designed sampler. Samples of the slag–metal interface were successfully taken in both gas stirring and induction stirring modes. The similarities of the appearance as well as the micrographs of the samples suggested that the slag–metal interfaces in the two stirring modes were very similar except in the open eye area. In the case of both stirring modes, metal droplets were found in the slag bulk. On the other hand, no appreciable amount of slag was detected in the metal bulk. Further systematic investigation using a large number of samples is required to obtain a quantitative description of the interface.