Monitoring of Quality of Vermicular Cast Iron from the Front of the Furnace

Verrnicular cast iron is used in certain fields because of its special physical properties. However, it is difficult to control the quality from the front of the furnace owing to the narrow range of vermiculizer and other elements that can be added to the iron. A real time method was developed to monitor the vermioular-graphite ratio of the cast iron based on fast measurements of the melt surface tension. The system includes a detector and a control unit that measure the amplitude and frequency of bubbles rising in the melt. This paper describes the methodology for measuring the surface tension of the melt and test results monitoring the vermicular-graphite ratio of the vermicular cast iron from the front of the furnace. The relationship be-tween surface tension and graphite shape has been established. The results show that this system can quickly evaluate the verrnicular-graphite ratio of the cast iron.Key words: vermicular cast iron; surface tension; graphite shape