Patent ID: 6929773

Claim:
A method for determining the presence and quantity of a slag phase and a steel phase in molten steel being transferred in a teeming operation between an originating metallurgical vessel and at least one receiving metallurgical vessel comprising the steps of: a.) causing a teeming stream of said molten steel to flow between said originating metallurgical vessel and said at least one receiving metallurgical vessel; b.) acquiring a real time video image of said teeming stream, said video image comprised of a plurality of video image frames; c.) digitizing said video image frames to produce a sequence of digital video image frames; d.) defining a threshold brightness level for pixels in a digital image of molten steel wherein pixels of a brightness greater than said threshold brightness level are indicative of said slag phase, and pixels of a brightness less than said threshold brightness level are indicative of said steel phase; e.) thresholding said digital video image frames at said threshold brightness level to produce processed digital image video frames in which pixels representing said slag phase are converted to uniformly bright pixels corresponding to the quantity of said slag phase present in said teeming stream, and pixels representing said steel phase are converted to uniformly dark pixels corresponding to the quantity of said steel phase present in said teeming stream; f.) analyzing said uniformly light pixels and said uniformly dark pixels in said processed digital video image frames to determine said quantity of said slag phase present in said teeming stream, and said quantity of said steel phase present in said teeming stream.