Control of Slag Formation, Foaming, Slopping, and Chaos in BOF

Decarburization, slag formation, foaming, and slopping in basic oxygen furnace (BOF) can now be partly understood, and to some extent predicted with the help of several on-line measurements and on-line control models. The principal reaction in BOF is decarburization. The bulk of the decarburization takes place in the turbulent region of jet impact irrespective of the fact whether the slag is solid, liquid or foamy. Metal droplets are ejected from the jet impact zone but it is difficult to distinguish the decarburization occurring in the bulk metal from that occurring in the droplets. Slag in BOF is heterogeneous and always contains some entrained gas bubbles and solid material (either un-dissolved or precipitated). At no stage the slag is 100 % liquid. A significant part of the metal droplets fall back and travel through the semi liquid slag. Through this mechanism the droplets can cause slag foaming and slopping in the BOF. Phenomenon of slag foaming and slopping can be monitored and controlled by following, dynamically, the audio signals, gas flow rate and composition, by tracking ‘Chaos’ in chemical reactions, by manipulating the chaotic attractors, and by monitoring the lance water temperature and weight. Relative stability potential (RSP) diagrams are found to be a good indicator of the dynamics of process inside the BOF and help in advance prediction of the impending chaos.     

UHV RHEED system for in-situ studies of sputtered films

An all-metal, bakeable, ultra-high vacuum reflection high-energy electron diffraction (UHV RHEED) system has been developed for in-situ studies of films during deposition on surfaces by processes such as r.f. sputtering, where pressures in the region of the specimen may be as high as 3–4 Pa. The design separates the 50 kV gun vacuum from that of the specimen chamber with a single differential pumping aperture, which also serves as the beam-defining aperture. The electron optics enable a focussed spot of about 50 μm to be produced on the detector at a distance of 50 cm from the end of the magnetic lens housing, with adequate current for RHEED studies. The RHEED system has been installed in an UHV r.f. magnetron sputter-deposition chamber and has been successfully applied to (i) monitor, in the presence of the sputter discharge, the surface of a chemically cleaned n-type Si(100) wafer and (ii) study the subsequent growth of Pt films on the silicon surface under different conditions of sputtering pressure and r.f. power.     

Synthesis of submicron size silver powder for passive components application

Submicron silver powder was prepared from AgNO₃ by a chemical reduction method in the presence of a mixture of caprylic acid and triethanolamine as a surfactant. Hydrazine hydrate (N₂H₄·H₂O) is preferred as a reducing agent. A spherical silver powder with an average particle size of about 150 nm was achieved. Effort was also made to correlate the crystal structure and microstructure evolution of the prepared powders with the resultant thick film characteristics.     

Progress on the boundary element method to study the disturbance fields of bodies moving in an unbounded medium

For studying flow problems involved with complex physics it is now common to use numerical field methods for solving Navier-Stokes or Euler equations. However, for a large class of fluid mechanics problems, which can be dealt with linearized potential equations, the boundary element method proves to be quite useful, especially for its easy application and relatively less computational effort compared to the field methods. The boundary element method has undergone some significant advancements in the last decade with respect to the study of steady and unsteady flow problems concerning wing aerodynamics in compressible medium, flow fields of propellers and rotors and acoustical disturbance propagation from moving bodies. In this paper a few recent contributions which evolved in the DLR as research projects and as doctoral and diploma thesis of the Technical University Braunschweig are concisely described.List of symbols a Sound velocity - b Span of a wing - c _p Coefficient of static pressure - c _dp Coefficient of profile drag - c ₁, c _d, c_m Coefficient of lift, drag and moment per unit span width - c _L, c_D, c_M Total lift, drag and moment-coefficients - c _T, c_P Thrust and power-coefficient of a propeller - d Distance - D Doublet strength - e Specific heat energy - E Total energy in a moving medium element - f Frequency - F Field point - g Gravitational acceleration - h Radial distance in cylinder coordinates - I ₁, I ₂ Inducing functions - i, j, k Unit vectors in cartesian coordinates - k Wave number [/a ] - l Local wing-chord - l ₀, l _v Length of singularity element at t _oand t _v - m Notation for Fourier-component - M, M ^* Mach number based on local and critical sound speed - n Number of rotation per second - n Unit normal vector to a surface     

Morphologies and characteristics of deformation induced martensite during tensile deformation of 304 LN stainless steel

The austenite γ (fcc) matrix of 304 LN stainless steel transforms readily to martensites (hcp) and ′ (bcc) on deformation. The formation and nucleation mechanism of deformation induced martensite (DIM) during tensile deformation of 304 LN stainless steel has been studied at various strain rates in room temperature. It is investigated that the enhancement of strain rates during tensile deformation promotes the early formation of DIM, while suppressing its saturation value at fracture. Extensive transmission electron microscopy (TEM) studies showed more than one nucleation site for martensite transformation and the transformation mechanisms were observed to be γ (fcc) →  (hcp), γ (fcc) → ′ (bcc) and γ (fcc) →  (hcp) → ′ (bcc).     

A hygrometer comprising a porous silicon humidity sensor with phase-detection electronics

A novel hygrometer is presented, comprising a capacitive humidity sensor with a porous silicon (PS) dielectric and electronics. The adsorption of water vapor by the PS layer leading to change of its effective dielectric constant is modeled with an effective medium approximation (EMA). A simple, but precise, phase-sensitive electronic circuit has been developed. This detects any change of phase of a sinusoidal signal transmitted through the PS dielectric and correlates to ambient humidity. It is outlined how the nonlinear response of the sensor is compensated through piecewise linearization. The sensor is tested in combination with the phase detection circuitry. Excellent linearity over the entire range of relative humidity is achieved. Experimental results show a resolution better than 0.1% and an accuracy of 2% (near the transition region) and better than 0.1% (otherwise). The response time is less than 10 s with good stability.