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Plasma Studies in Vacuum ARC Remelting*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2011

Rodney L. Williamson ,
Frank. J. Zanner ,
Lee A. Bertram  and
Henry C. Peebles
Rodney L. Williamson
Affiliation:
Sandia National Laboratories, P.O. Box 5800, Albuquerque, NM 87185
Frank. J. Zanner
Affiliation:
Sandia National Laboratories, P.O. Box 5800, Albuquerque, NM 87185
Lee A. Bertram
Affiliation:
Sandia National Laboratories, P.O. Box 5800, Albuquerque, NM 87185
Henry C. Peebles
Affiliation:
Sandia National Laboratories, P.O. Box 5800, Albuquerque, NM 87185
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Abstract

The visible and UV plasma emissions from a metal vapor arc were studied during vacuum arc remelting of 165 mm diameter Inconel 718 electrodes using emission spectroscopy. Internal energy distributions of a number of emitting species were analyzed using Boltzmann statistics. Analysis of the data yielded distribution “temperatures” ranging from 5,400 K to 8,200 K for the neutral atomic arc species, whereas values of 12,200 K to 17,500 K were obtained for singly ionized species. These values illustrate that the arc is not in a state of local thermodynamic equilibrium. The excited state densities of various arc constituents were measured and it was found that highly volatile alloy trace components, such as Mn, were present in the arc in dispro-portionately high concentrations. These data suggest that ionized evaporates play an important role in carrying current between the electrodes.

Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 98: Symposium K – Plasma Processing and Synthesis of Materials II , 1987 , 365
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 1987

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Footnotes

*

This work performed at Sandia National Laboratories supported by the U. S. Department of Energy under contract number DE-AC04-76DP00789.

References

REFERENCES

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