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Differences between Tundish Impact Pad and Impact Pot

2025-11-12

1. What is a Tundish Impact Pot?

A tundish flow stabilizer is a functional refractory material installed at the bottom of the impact zone of the tundish to stabilize the flow of molten steel in the tundish nozzle area, prevent slag from being drawn into the molten steel and causing internal quality defects in continuous casting, promote the floating of inclusions, and reduce molten steel splashing.

2 What is Tundish Impact Pad

Tundish impact pad are prefabricated refractory materials used in continuous casting tundishes to buffer the impact of molten steel, reduce turbulence and splashing. Their main functions include protecting the bottom of the tundish, promoting the floating of inclusions, and optimizing the flow characteristics of molten steel.

3 The difference between tundish impact pad and impact pot

To address the issue of rapid erosion of the working layer near the tundish impact zone by molten steel, which restricts further improvement in tundish lifespan, adding impact pads or flow stabilizers to the impact zone can slow down the erosion of the working layer near the impact zone, thus further extending the tundish lifespan. However, impact pads have significant shortcomings in improving molten steel cleanliness and mitigating erosion of the ladle wall. Because the ladle casting has considerable kinetic energy, the jet cannot immediately and completely mix with the surrounding molten steel, resulting in a substantial impact force on the ladle bottom.

Therefore, when using a conventional impact pads, the steel flow flows directly from the bottom of the ladle to the tundish nozzle, forming a short-circuit flow. Inclusions in the steel flow have no opportunity or sufficient time to float and are discharged from the nozzle into the crystallizer. With a flow stabilizer, the trajectory of the molten steel in the tundish changes, reducing additional circulation and essentially eliminating the short-circuit flow, thus promoting the floating of inclusions. The trajectory of the molten steel is shown in Figure 1. During continuous casting, the flow stabilizer alleviates the strong impact of the ladle flow on the molten steel surface in the tundish, resulting in a stable molten steel surface. The molten steel flows along the steel-slag interface, shortening the distance for inclusions to float. The flow stabilizer confines the strong eddies caused by the ladle flow impact to a localized area, reducing the probability of slag entrapment and promoting the floating of inclusions, thereby reducing inclusions. Therefore, the flow stabilizer is significantly more effective than a conventional impact pads in removing inclusions from molten steel. Furthermore, reducing tundish surface fluctuations also contributes to extending the service life of the working layer at the slag line position.