2011 Volume 51 Issue 12 Pages 2056-2063
A statistics of extreme values was applied to determine the largest inclusion sizes in the Type 304 stainless steel. The samples taken from a tundish, slab and hot rolled steel in one heat were examined by using a two dimensional observation of inclusions on a metal cross section. It was found that the molten steel sample contained two different types of inclusions, which were deoxidation products (SiO2–CaO–MgO–Al2O3) and reoxidation products (SiO2–MnO–Cr2O3). As a result, the extreme value distribution (EVD) for different types of inclusions in the melt has two different slopes. Meanwhile, the inclusions in the slab sample provided a good linearity in one EVD. Moreover, the correlation coefficients of the regression lines for both the slab and rolled steel samples increased significantly with an increased number of measurements from 40 to 80 unit areas. It was found also that the EVD data for fractured inclusions on a parallel cross section of rolled steel agreed satisfactorily well with that for the initial spherical inclusions in the slab sample. Based on the geometrical considerations of inclusion deformation and fracture during hot-rolling, the maximum length of fractured inclusions in rolled steel can be estimated reasonably well from the EVD for initial undeformed inclusions in the slab sample.
