Inoculant measurement with thermal analysis

Sammanfattning: Over time the level of inoculant will decrease due to fading and this needs to be compensated bymore additions of inoculant. When casting CGI400 at Scania a one-step method is used, and the inoculant additions are based on the last ladle from the previous oven. Longer stops in production will result in the previous oven not being representable and more inoculant should be added. A method to establish the inoculation level of the base iron in the oven would make it easier to control the process. This study was about inoculation measurements with the help of thermo- analysis of the melt in the oven to get a better understanding how it fluctuates between ovens and changes over time. The study is also about how to implement this tool into production in a foundry. With the help of thermo- analytic measurements, the inoculation level of the melt was established, and the method was also used to see how the level of inoculant changed over. To establish the inoculation additions needed, the saturation point of inoculant was investigated. The results from the study shows that the starting level of inoculant is too low in the melt it also shows that the inoculation level fluctuates over time. The conclusions that can be drawn from this study is that thermos analysis can be used in production to establish the inoculation level, but moremeasurements needs to be conducted to determine its accuracy.