Abstract
Preparation of steel-slag core-shell droplet sample is necessary for the measurement of interfacial tension between molten steel and slag/flux by the oscillating droplet technique in international space station (ISS). In the present work, the engulfment of molten iron by molten slag/flux was investigated by melting the iron and slag/flux mixed powder compact with arc melting. The slag/flux used are blast furnace (BF) slag, ilmenite (IL)/lime titania (LT)/low hydrogen (LH) type coating fluxes. We found that molten iron was entirely encapsulated by molten IL flux at high temperature and the iron/flux core-shell structure was maintained after cooling, which means IL flux is a favorable material for the interfacial measurement in ISS. In addition, the engulfment of molten iron by simulated molten BF slag was discussed based on spreading coefficient and a numerical simulation of coalescence of two droplets
