Development of advanced cold crucible melting of titanium alloys

Cold crucible is used to melt reactive metal scrap at elevated temperatures for high quality castings or to produce spherical powders for additive manufacturing. The most advanced crucibles have a small exit nozzle to pour the molten alloy through the bottom opening protected by graphite or ceramic material. The nozzle operates at high temperature and typically lasts several minutes, possibly adding contamination to the outflowing liquid metal. This paper presents new efforts to improve the technique with the aim to achieve a stable commercial process by introducing melting of scrap metal in the presence of liquid flux of different compositions to purify the liquid metal and to enhance thermal effectiveness. The crucial modification in avoiding contamination is a new type of the non-consumable nozzle made of copper segments and the second coil to supply a high frequency electromagnetic field in the vicinity of the nozzle. The nozzle entrance is protected by a thin solidified layer of the same alloy as the main melt. The AC electromagnetic field adds heating at the outflow, modifies the velocity field, gives a possibility to extract particles, and precludes entrainment of slag into the final casting or into the produced powder. The electromagnetic force permits to control the outflow rate and to increase the superheat of the metal at the outlet. The presence of flux permits shielding of the liquid metal from direct contact with the water-cooled side segments of the crucible. The paper demonstrates the effectiveness of numerical modelling to predict and investigate a variety of options in advancement of the cold crucible technique. Figs 8, Refs 13.