Control Process of Manganese and Oxygen Content in Melting Ultra-high Manganese Steel by Vacuum Induction Furnace

The vacuum induction furnace is utilized for the melting of ultra-high manganese steel. To address the issue of elevated oxygen levels while achieving high manganese yield, a dual-furnace melting process has been meticulously designed and implemented. In the first heat, the impacts of furnace pressure and molten steel temperature before manganese addition and the frequency of manganese addition on the manganese yield were studied. The results show that the manganese yield approaching 100% can be attained when the furnace pressure is maintained at 30 kPa and the molten steel temperature is set at 1610℃ before adding manganese introduced in six equal batches, but the oxygen content is as high as 0.037%. In the second heat, the ingot produced in the first heat is remelted under vacuum and deoxidized through the vacuum carbon-oxygen reaction. The impacts of carbon addition, furnace pressure and reaction time on oxygen and manganese content in molten steel were studied. The results show that the oxygen content can be reduced to 0.0012% when the furnace pressure is set at 25 Pa, the carbon content is 0.2%, and the reaction time is extended to 30 min. Under these conditions, the content of manganese is 23.66%, and the comprehensive yield of manganese is 91%. This experimental research offers a vacuum induction melting technique tailored for steel with low oxygen and ultra-high manganese content, suitable for pilot-scale or small-batch industrial applications, and also charts a course for the ultra-clean production of ultra-high manganese content steel in the future.