钢铁冶炼的过程中，通过电镜分析铸造过程中样品，可以控制夹杂物，控制化学成分。从而提高产品质量，研制出更高级产品。
Steel castings include hydroelectric turbine wheels, forging presses, gears, railroad car frames, valve bodies, pump casings, mining machinery, marine equipment, and engine casings. In the making of each, it is important to maintain tight control of the steel inclusions present, such as oxides and other impurities in the steel. For the each of the industries that use steel castings, failure can cause catastrophic injury, waste time and materials, and set back further production.
Since the steel is poured from the arc furnace into the casting molds, the quality of the steel must be monitored to insure the quality of the castings. Any impurities in the steel become impurities in the castings, including brittleness, loss of ductility, and incorrect grain size. These inclusions can include sulphur, oxides, phosphorous, and tin, and each has its own effect on the making of steel. If the pieces are deemed poor-quality after molding, they must be remelted and recast, the entire process restarted. Eliminating the need to inspect the product after it has been completed optimizes the casting process.
Casting control through inclusion monitoring is what has manufacturers turning to scanning electron microscopes. The Aspex Personal Scanning Electron Microscope (PSEM) with Metal Quality Analyzer (MQA) software allows manufacturers to monitor the steel contents directly on the shop floor – before it enters the casting molds. Manufacturers can then adjust the steel quality before it has been molded, saving energy and consumables.
The MQA lets manufacturers vary the calcium additive to optimize castability; provides a quality assessment of the steel; and provides steel cleanliness vs. casting time information, before the steel enters the mold. The fully-automated program uses the electron beam backscatter to assess the likelihood of an inclusion, and, if the backscatter is dark enough, initiates the inclusion-sizing sequence, RCA. In addition, the PSEM is capable of relaying the elemental composition of the inclusions, as well as the size and number, providing manufacturers with valuable information to stop the inclusions upstream.
The Aspex PSEM with MQA utilizes scan speeds of up to 10,000 inclusions fully characterized in an hour, directly on the shop floor. Contact our specialists to see how the PSEM by Aspex can save upwards of $1,000,000 per year, whether through energy savings or consumable consumption, far beyond the cost of implementation.
