No quantitative measures have provided comprehensive electrical resistivity values of molten metals in present materials handbooks, even though this information is beneficial for many applications. An indirect experimental approach was presented to estimate the electrical resistivity of molten stainless steel using a single-phase AC resistance spot welding machine. The precision of the measurements was validated through standard error analysis and the general variation tendency of the estimated resistivity was consistent with similar metals in a qualitative manner. Not only does the estimated resistivity of molten stainless steel fill a knowledge-gap of its electrical material property above the melting temperature, but also the implemented approach is readily generalizable to solve the...[ Read more ]

No quantitative measures have provided comprehensive electrical resistivity values of molten metals in present materials handbooks, even though this information is beneficial for many applications. An indirect experimental approach was presented to estimate the electrical resistivity of molten stainless steel using a single-phase AC resistance spot welding machine. The precision of the measurements was validated through standard error analysis and the general variation tendency of the estimated resistivity was consistent with similar metals in a qualitative manner. Not only does the estimated resistivity of molten stainless steel fill a knowledge-gap of its electrical material property above the melting temperature, but also the implemented approach is readily generalizable to solve the resistivity of more metals and their alloys in the molten state. Benefits include gaining a better understanding of the phase transition phenomena of various metals, providing new insights in the nature of chemical bonding, facilitating model based control systems, achieving efficient energy use and reducing the errors between experiments and simulation by providing precise material properties at high temperature.