Synopsis: A study was made of non-metallic inclusions in medium or high carbon steel billets which were cast by the six strands S-type continuous casting machine of Kokura Works, Sumitomo Metal Ind., Ltd. The way of avoiding large silicate inclusions was also investigated. As the result, the reoxidation by air during casting was found to be detrimental in producing high quality steel grades by continuous casting. Many kinds of large silicates even if they are chemically unstable can exist in large quantity when the tundish stream was not protected from air. In order to avoid those silicates, it was shown that the oxygen content of the atmosphere around the stream must be maintained under 0.8%. The mechanism of the silicate formation and its growth are discussed on the basis of the test results.
In this work, we propose a new optical measurement method and setup to investigate the dynamic behavior of a pneumatically driven diaphragm micropump in a microfluidic system. The presented method allows a contact-free spatially and temporally resolved determination of the membrane displacement. Hence, it enables to derive the volume flow rate, generated by the micropump. The method is based on the Lambert–Beer law, which describes the intensity weakening of light traveling through a medium with an absorbing substance. The fluorescence emission of a medium can thus be related to the light traveling length. The measurement method is used to deduce the flow rate profile generated by the micropump of the Lab-on-Chip system Vivalytic from Bosch Healthcare Solutions. We further quantify effects of fluidic components and system parameters on the transient flow rates. This allows the determination of maximum flow rates and pumping cycle durations as a basis for the implementation of fluidic processes on the system. The presented method requires neither additional, integrated sensor components nor a complex measurement setup. It can be implemented in any microfluidic system with membrane-based, optically accessible micropumps without major hardware modifications.
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