Technical Information 27

Alternative Tundish Ladle Design

The tundish cover process may be designed to suit a range of different foundry conditions.
Examples are fixed lid, automatic lifting or manual removable lids. Low levels of fume and
smoke will escape from the tundish vessel, giving a good foundry environment.

The figures below shows some alternative ways of designing tundish cover ladles with
fixed and removable lids. A fixed lid requires an alloy charging port for introduction of
MgFeSi-alloy. Ladles with fixed lid can generally not be deslagged, and therefore slag ac-
cumulation may be a problem. Hence, low slag forming alloys (low Ca and Al) are recom-
mended for such ladles.

The tea pot ladles offers an advantage in that liquid iron can be filled through the tea pot
spout. This means that the tundish cover basin is eliminated. Both fixed and removable
lids can be applied for teapot ladles. Teapot ladles will generally supply cleaner metal into
pouring ladles and autopours due to the slag skimming effect of the spout.

The lifting or removable tundish cover design is probably the most flexible and easiest to
maintain. Lifting covers can be either integrated to the ladle with a separate lifting lug or
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Technical Information 27 2

constructed as a fully removable lid by using for instance a fork lift truck. The lid can also
be mounted onto the furnace spout. The major advantages with removable lids are easy
access to deslagging and cleaning of the ladles and also that the same lid can be used for
several ladles. Charging of MgFeSi-alloy is also easier when the lid is removed from the
ladle top.

For more information about tundish ladle treatments, please refer to Elkem Technical In-
formation sheets 9, 10, and 11, and also 20 and 21 for selection of alloys and heat con-
servation.