The life of porous purging plugs in service is limited by the depth of molten steel penetration into the plug. Therefore it is important to understand the penetration behavior. The penetration phenomena relate to not only on refractory industry but also on the other material processing. Then the behavior of molten metal penetration into porous refractory is highly interesting. However the penetration behavior for non-wetting system has never been reported yet as far as we know in spite of its significance. The authors observed molten metal penetration into porous refractories by using an X-ray radiographic apparatus and analyzed the penetration behavior. Data for the observed maximum penetration height were analyzed using a capillary model in which a labyrinth (or tortuosity) factor xi was introduced, that is, a modified capillary model. As labyrinth factor is an effective coefficient reflecting the influence of microstructure of porous refractory, it is an important factor, especially, in the case of molten metal penetration into porous refractory, that is, non-wetting system.
展开▼
