FEATURE | Melting/

Forming/Joining

Clean-Steel Practices
in the Melt Shop
Chuck Fryman Ellwood Quality Steels; New Castle, Pa.
Like many terms in the eld of metallurgy, clean steel can mean
different things to different people. Some think of clean steel as
steel that is low in residual element content (such as phosphorus,
antimony, tin, etc.). Clean steel could also refer to the surface
quality of an ingot, slab or sheet.

h most popular denition of clean steel is in reference to

he
steel
with low inclusion content. This article will review
s
some
of the techniques that are used to produce steel with
s
low
inclusion
content and how these practices are used in
l
steelmaking.

What Is an Inclusion?
Inclusions are non-metallic particles that are trapped in the solid
steel matrix of a forging or rolled product. Exogenous inclusions
are those that come from sources outside of the steel, such as refractory bricks or ux used in molds and casters. Exogenous inclusions are typically large (>1 mm in size) because they originate as
crumbs of these outside sources that become entrapped in the
steel while it is being processed in liquid form. Indigenous inclusions are those that are formed from chemical reactions inside the
liquid steel as it is processing, such as when manganese combines
with sulfur in the liquid steel to form small manganese-sulde inclusions. Indigenous inclusions are typically on the micro scale
(0.001-1.000 mm in size). When striving for clean steel, it is the
indigenous inclusions that we are trying to control.
Indigenous inclusions can further be separated into two main
categories for steel: oxides and suldes (Fig. 1). Oxides are generated for the most part by the addition of aluminum or silicon during
secondary steelmaking. Suldes are generated during solidication when sulfur combines with a sulde former, most commonly
manganese.
Oxygen is Introduced in the EAF, Removed in the LF
Electric steelmaking starts with primary steelmaking in the electric arc furnace (EAF). It is the job of the EAF to turn solid scrap
into raw liquid steel. Oxygen is blown into the EAF throughout
primary steelmaking to accelerate the melting process through
the addition of chemical energy. The oxygen also combines with
carbon and phosphorus to form oxides that are removed from the
bath. Carbon leaves the bath in the form of CO and CO2 gas,
while phosphorus leaves the bath in the form of P2O5 which be-

comes part of the slag oating on top of the liquid steel.

After primary steelmaking in the EAF, the steel is tapped into
a ladle and moved to the ladle furnace (LF) for secondary steelmaking. In secondary steelmaking (aka ladle rening), alloys are
added, and the temperature of the liquid steel is adjusted by heating with carbon electrodes. One of the main goals in secondary
steelmaking is to remove all of the oxygen that was introduced
in the EAF. This is done mostly by the addition of (what else) a
deoxidant. The most common deoxidants are aluminum and silicon. Both of these elements have a strong afnity for oxygen, so
once they are introduced, they begin to combine with free oxygen
dissolved in the steel to form aluminum oxides or silicon oxides.
The removal of oxygen by adding an element with a strong afnity
for oxygen is known as killing. This is why you might hear steel
referred to as aluminum killed or silicon killed. After killing
the steel, you are left with a multitude of either SiO2 or Al2O3
particles in the liquid steel.
Now that we have generated all of these oxides, the idea is to
remove them by moving them to the slag. This can be accomplished given enough time and stirring. By stirring the bath via
magnetic induction stirring and/or inert gas bubbling through the
Inclusions in steel
Exogenous

Indigenous
Oxides

Suldes

Refractory
brick
Flux
powder
Refractory
nozzles

Al2O3

MnS

SiO2

Fig. 1. Types of inclusions

found in steel

Globular
oxides

IndustrialHeating.com - November 2011 47

FEATURE | Melting/
Forming/Joining

processing time in the ladle furnace, most

of the oxides should be removed from the
liquid steel and trapped in the liquid slag
on top of the steel.

Fig. 2. Clean-steel practices begin in the

ladle furnace.

bottom of the ladle, the oxide particles

are brought into contact with each other.
When the oxides run into each other, they
tend to agglomerate and make bigger oxides. As these alumina and silica particles
agglomerate and form larger oxides, they
have more buoyancy and have a greater
tendency to oat to the slag on top of
the liquid-steel bath. To accomplish this
removal of oxygen by deoxidant addition,
you must have effective stirring to bring
the oxides in contact with each other and
sufcient time for the agglomeration and
oating to take place. By the end of the

Sulfur Removal in the LF

While oxygen is being removed with the
help of aluminum and silicon, other processes are at work in the LF to remove
sulfur. As mentioned earlier, sulde inclusions are generated during solidication
when sulfur combines with manganese to
form MnS. The most effective way to reduce the number of MnS inclusions in the
nal product is to reduce the sulfur content of the steel. The reason we have sulfur in the steel in the rst place is because
it is an inherent element in iron ore itself
and, therefore, is typically found in steel
scrap as well. Sulfur is also added to the
system as a tramp element contained in
some ferro alloys such as ferro chrome. In
order to remove sulfur, we need to produce
a compound similar to the oxides generated when we killed the steel. For steelmaking purposes, this compound is CaS.
Sulfur will combine with calcium
through the following simple reaction:

less oxygen there is dissolved in the steel.

So adding deoxidant will drive the above
reaction to the right. In other words, deoxidizing aids in sulfur removal. Another
way to drive this reaction to the right is to
make sure there is plenty of CaO in the
slag. A slag that is diluted with CaO has
a higher capacity to absorb CaS. Again,
increasing the reactants on the left side
of the equation drives the reaction to the
right and aids in sulfur removal.
Achieving the Lowest Possible
Inclusion Content
So far we have discussed the mechanisms
by which oxide and sulde inclusions are
removed from the liquid steel. It is impossible to achieve perfect steel cleanliness
by these methods, however, and there will
always be some inclusions that remain in
the steel. The goal is to reduce the inclu-

CaS

Slag

AL2O3
Al + O

Ca + S

CaO + S A CaS + O

However, the more complete picture of

what is actually happening in an aluminum-killed steel is given by this reaction:

Liquid steel

3(CaO) + 2Al +3S A 3(CaS) + Al2O3

The amount of oxygen in the steel is directly related to how much deoxidant (Al)
is in the steel. The more deoxidant, the

Fig. 3. In the ladle furnace, sulfur and

oxygen are removed from the steel and
are pushed to the slag through various
chemical reactions and kinetic processes.

Processing Aerospace Materials

Although low-density metals such as titanium and aluminum
alloys receive most of the attention in the aerospace industry,
steel remains the material of choice for many airplane
components. However, not just any steel will do when it comes
to building planes. Steels that are used in aerospace applications
such as landing gear and bulkheads need to have good fatigue
properties to survive the cyclic loading that these components
receive. In order to have good fatigue properties, the steel must
be high strength and have a low inclusion content. Inclusions,
or any other imperfections in the steel matrix, act as stress
concentrators. These stress concentrators are then likely to act
as fatigue-crack initiation sites. Once a fatigue crack is initiated,

48 November 2011 - IndustrialHeating.com

it does not require as much energy to propagate the crack. Given

enough cycles of sufcient stress, a fatigue crack will grow and
eventually lead to failure.
To produce clean steels such as those required for aerospace
applications, clean-steel practices like the ones outlined in this
article must be employed. In addition to these clean-steel
practices, many aerospace steels are also required to undergo
secondary melting operations such as vacuum-arc remelting
(VAR) or electro-slag remelting (ESR). These remelting
processes take an air-melted ingot and remelt it under
controlled conditions to rene the steel further, resulting in
steel with even fewer inclusions.

sion content to as low of a level as possible.

As mentioned previously, the most important processing
variables for inclusion removal are time and adequate mixing.
It takes time for the oxide particles to meet up with each other
in the liquid steel and agglomerate, and the agglomeration of
the oxide particles is necessary for the oxides to achieve adequate buoyancy to oat up to the slag on top of the liquid
bath. Adequate mixing also facilitates agglomeration of the
oxide particles. The more the steel is stirred and mixed, the
more likely the oxide particles are to come in contact with each
other. Time and stirring also aid in sulfur removal. Proper stirring of the steel will increase the slag-steel interaction in the
ladle. Increased surface-area interaction between the steel and
the slag promotes the kinetics of the calcium-sulfur reaction.
As mentioned earlier, it is also important to have a high CaO
content in the slag to increase its capacity to absorb sulfur.
Hence, the keys to sulfur removal are often shortened to the
brief couplet Lime and Time. IH
For more information: Chuck Fryman, metallurgist, Ellwood
Quality Steels, 700 Moravia St., New Castle, PA 16101; tel: 724-6586527; fax: 724-658-6802; e-mail: cfryman@elwd.com; web: www.
ellwoodgroup.com

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IndustrialHeating.com - November 2011 49