Influence of TiC on the Viscosity of CaO–MgO–Al₂O₃–SiO₂–TiC Suspension System

Abstract

The present study investigated the influence of TiC particle addition on the viscosity of CaO–MgO–Al₂O₃–SiO₂ melts by using the rotating cylinder method. It was found viscosity increased as increasing the volume fraction of TiC, but decreased as enhancing the rotation speed. The temperature dependence of viscosity for the same composition can be described by the Arrhenius law. However, temperature has little influence on the relative viscosity of TiC bearing slag. There is also no obvious difference of activation energies for different compositions with or without the addition of TiC solid particle. Therefore, the activation energy of solid-liquid mixture may be mainly determined by the composition of liquid phase. Two kinds of TiC with the particle sizes of 1.0 μm and 10 μm were used to study the influences of solid size on viscosity, and it was found the TiC particle with a small size can increase the viscosity much more greatly. The Einstein-Roscoe equation cannot be used directly to the TiC containing two-phase mixtures. By modifying the parameter, it can well describe the viscosity variation behavior. According to the calculated results, the maximum volume fraction increases as increasing the rotation speed or decreasing the particle size of TiC. The apparent volume of TiC is about 2.2–3.3 times of its real volume.