It is the microstructural constituants of the material that define the mechanical properties of steel, namely the strength, hardness and dislocation density of the material.
The cooling rate of steel during the production process after the final deformation stage has a large impact on the mechanical properties of the material as well as the shape and final flatness of the product.
Air atomised sprays are widely used within the industry to control this cooling rate as the high velocity of the spray droplets generated through the use of compressed air with the liquid flow enables the liquid to get close to the surface of the material to remove the high-density heat fluxes from the solid surfaces.
The size of the parts generated through the rolled steel production of billets of steel for example require the use of multiple nozzles. Therefore understanding of the nature of the drop size distribution and volume flux across the application area is critical to the development of a homogenous cooling process and therefore developing a uniform grainsize distribution throughout the product. The drop size measurement capability of the VisiSize N60 system enables the determination of the drop size distribution variation across the spray application area. This can be done in-situ of the instrumentation as the system has a Class 1 laser safe classification.
Oxford Lasers provide products and services to a wide variety of industries for in-line production imaging analysis.
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