Effects of instabilities on the properties of ingots made by the ESR and VAR processes

Abstract

The ESR and VAR processes are very often carried out under less-than-ideal conditions where the procedure involves inadvertent instabilities such as interruptions in metal flow or abrupt changes in the process heat balance. In this work we demonstrate the effects of typical examples of such instability as related to the remelting processes. It is suggested that a major direction in modelling development should be towards an understanding of the extent to which instability can be tolerated relative to the product requirements. Such an understanding would assist in the establishment of suitable quality standards governing the production of high-quality alloys.