Abstract:Based on the program developed to simulate the temperature field for ISM(Induction Skull Melting) process, the effects of power increasing rate and charge mass on the melting throughout time and the energy consumption for TiAl alloys were studied. The results show that the melting throughout time decreases exponentially with the increasing of the power increasing rate and it linearly increases with the increasing of the charge mass. There is a critical power increasing rate for different charge masses. At this critical power increasing rate, the charge can be molten when the melting power just reaches 300 kW. There exists an optimal power increasing rate, i.e. 1.3 kW/s. At the optimal power increasing rate, the energy consumption for melting the charge is the minimum. The charge mass has noticeable influence on the energy consumed by unit mass and the ratio of effective energy.

Key words: TiAl alloys; ISM process; melting throughout time; energy consumption