Our article published in The Proceedings for the 2011 Global Continuous Casting Forum of The Wire Association International is entitled, "New Improvements for Surface Oxide Testing of Copper Rod," by Gil Baker, Tim Stahlhut and Horace Pops.  

This article provides new understanding and techniques for making more profitable use of surface oxide measurements, as well as, improving their repeatability.

The most beneficial set of new developments revealed in this paper involves a better understanding of subsurface oxides:

	Understanding the influence that subsurface oxides contained in rod have on the Surface Oxide Test.
	Methods that can be used to detect and quantify these detrimental subsurface oxides.  (They are detrimental to both quality and drawability.)
	Discussion of the sources of subsurface oxides that can be remedied when significant subsurface oxides are detected.
	Discussion of the consequences of subsurface oxides, as well as those of high surface oxides when subsurface oxides are not present.

These concepts and methods will not only help to clarify previous uncertainties in the Surface Oxide Test, but will also elevate productivity and performance of copper rod by both increasing the coil quality and saving money by lowering the required level of pickling agents, such as alcohol.

Additionally, accuracy and repeatability improvements for the Surface Oxide Test have been realized via a number of innovations:

	The development of an accessory that measures reduction efficiency during each test.
	A new method for managing dissolved oxygen, with the goal of holding dissolved oxygen to what had previously been considered a �very low� level.
	A new method that improves accuracy and repeatability by optimizing the measurement resolution for both copper oxide constituents.

Due to limited space information left out of this article has been provided here.

Prior to this, an article was published in the The Wire Association International in their December 2009 issue, �New Developments in Rod Surface Measurement and Analysis,� by Gil Baker and Horace Pops.

(Basic details about our Surface Oxide Tester are found at this link.)