Wetting behavior of CaO-Al_(2)O_(3)-based mold flux with various BaO and MgO contents on the steel substrate

The Interfacial phenomena in mold have a great impact on the smooth operation of continuous casting process and the quality of the casting product.In this paper,the wetting behavior of CaO-Al_(2)O_(3)-based mold flux with different BaO and MgO contents was studied.The results showed that the contact angle between molten flux and interstitial free(IF)steel substrate increased from 62.4°to 74.5°with the increase of BaO content from 3 wt%to 7 wt%,while it decreased from 62.4°to 51.3°with the increase of MgO content from 3 wt%to 7 wt%.The interfacial tension also increased from 1630.3 to 1740.8 mN/m when the BaO content increased,but it reduced from 1630.3 to 1539.7 mN/m with the addition of MgO.The changes of contact angle and interfacial tension were mainly due to the fact that the bridging oxygen(O^(0)) at the interface was broken into non-bridging oxygen(O^(-)) and free oxygen(O_(2-)) by MgO.However,more O^(-) and O_(2-) connected into O^(0) when BaO was added,since the charge compensation effect of BaO was so stronger that it offset the effect of providing O_(2-).