Surface tension of liquid Fe, Nb and 304L SS and effect of drop mass in aerodynamic levitation

The oscillating drop method has been widely used for surface tension measurements of liquids at high temperatures such as molten metals. An experimental device that permits developed IRDL. This relies on aerodynamic levitation the sample to be contactless and acoustic excitation make it oscillate its resonance frequency, which is related with Rayleigh’s equation. Beforehand, experimentally, a lateral gas jet blows controls rotation due unpredictable behavior. Moreover, effect mass, usually studied electromagnetic levitation, remains unknown levitation. To fill this knowledge gap, levitated drops different masses were numerically modeled observe influence gravity or additional oscillation modes. It resulted light mass drops, those our measurement, not significant. Finally, results iron, niobium, 304L stainless steel have compared literature. For pure metals, we observed similar decreasing behavior versus temperature. steel, highlighted impact parameters (length experiments composition atmosphere). These thus provide original will useful numerical modeling innovative industrial processes additive manufacturing welding.