Erosion of steel structures by high-temperature melts

Tests in which 200-kg stainless steel melts at 17000C were teemed onto mild-steel structures are reported. The steel structures varied in thickness from 0.95 to 7.62 cm. The melts contacted the steel either as a stream at a velocity of about 4 m/s or as a relatively quiescent pool. Erosion of the steel by high-velocity streams was found to be a linear function of time. These erosion rates indicate the streaming melts imposed a heat flux of 769 +- 92 cal/cm2-s on the steel structures. The more quiescent melts provided heat fluxes of about 212 +- 22 cal/cm2-s. Results of the tests were compared to simple models that have appeared in the literature. A finite-difference model is used to infer details of the stainless steel erosion processes