Liquid metal characterization by levitation at high pressure and high temperature – CaraMeLL

The partial knowledge of the physical properties of metals in liquid state is today a lack in the understanding of physical phenomena and a key issue for the development of multiphysics models. This information, very difficult to access, is required in many sectors: automotive, aerospace, naval, energy, wherever metal alloys are strongly used. Unfortunately, the current literature is incomplete or temperature limited.
For example, metal additive manufacturing makes it possible to create parts by depositing exclusively molten metal. The development of this technology is based on thermo-hydrodynamic modelling and experimental research, both requiring extensive knowledge of the thermophysical properties of molten metal in order to understand the appearance of defects and analyse the observed physical phenomena (example : Marangoni)..
The CarameLL project aims to establish a breakthrough in the measurement of thermophysical properties of molten metals by using a non-contact aerodynamic levitation device allowing high temperature measurements of surface tension, viscosity or specific heat of molten metals. This method, rather well known and already used at IRDL, will be coupled, for the first time in the CarameLL project, with a new methodology consisting in measuring under very high pressure in order to reduce as much as possible the phenomena of evaporation of alloying elements and of base metal. This idea will make it possible to reach much higher temperatures and to keep intact the chemical composition of alloys characterized. It will also make it possible to study more fundamentally the evaporation of alloying elements. Another originality, the project will be based on multiphysics modeling allowing the lifting of the last locks.