As a basic equipment in the refining process, ladle plays a vital role in metal smelting. At present, ladle is mainly composed of repair materials, ladle lining and insulation layer. Among them, lining refractory materials are an important component of ladle. Its material and insulation performance have the most direct effect on the quality of molten steel, temperature drop and smelting effect.
In the production process, steel enterprises and foundry enterprises will involve the use of ladles. Due to the differences in production processes and technical requirements, the materials and thickness of ladles are also different. The analysis of the differences in ladles in different production processes will help to better define the scope of use and precautions of ladles, and improve the pertinence and effectiveness of ladles. Table 1 and Table 2 are the ladle structures of large and medium-sized steel enterprises and foundry enterprises respectively:
Compare through charts. The ladles used by large and medium-sized steel enterprises mainly use microporous insulation materials to reduce the heat loss of molten steel, delay the cooling rate of molten steel, and achieve temperature drop treatment of molten steel in the operation process. The ladle used by foundries has a relatively simple structure and a relatively thin working layer thickness of only 15mm-25mm. In the absence of insulation materials, the temperature of the molten steel is directly reduced by refractory materials, which invisibly increases the degree of heat loss. The temperature of the molten steel increases rapidly in a short period of time, which has a certain negative impact on the subsequent casting work and also increases the probability of safety accidents in the casting process.
Through a horizontal comparison of the use of ladles by large and medium-sized steel enterprises and foundries, it is found that if the heat loss is controlled by relying solely on the insulation layer of the ladle, the effect is not good and it is difficult to meet the actual use needs. In order to effectively deal with this situation, the refractory materials in the ladle need to be appropriately adjusted, and the thermal conductivity of the refractory materials can be used to achieve reasonable control of the temperature drop to ensure the quality of the molten steel. At present, the ladles used in the foundry industry are basically small, and are affected by many factors. The selection of refractory materials for the ladle and the matching of lining particles are relatively random, ignoring the objective requirements of the oxygen potential index of the refractory materials in the temperature drop of the ladle operation. Based on this reality, in order to ensure the quality of molten steel and temperature drop performance, necessary technical means should be taken to reasonably adjust the refractory materials of the ladle during its use.