About this Abstract |
Meeting |
MS&T21: Materials Science & Technology
|
Symposium
|
Journal of the American Ceramic Society Awards Symposium
|
Presentation Title |
A Novel Strategy to Strengthen Alumina-carbon Refractories for Flow Control of Molten Steel |
Author(s) |
Zhe Chen, Wen Yan, Stefan Schafföner, Yajie Dai, Qiang Wang, Guangqiang Li |
On-Site Speaker (Planned) |
Stefan Schafföner |
Abstract Scope |
Al2O3-C refractories are essential to control the flow of molten steel during continuous casting due to their excellent thermal shock resistance. Ordinary Al2O3-C refractories are produced from dense corundum aggregates. According to traditional concept, the denser the refractories, the higher the strength of refractories. However, we proposed a novel strategy to enhance the strength of Al2O3-C refractories by using microporous corundum aggregates instead of dense ones. The lightweight Al2O3-C refractories combining the approach of using microporous aggregates and formation of SiC whiskers inside of microporous aggregates demonstrated an optimized bonding at the aggregate/matrix interface, which significantly enhanced their strength. On this basis, we found that using the carbon source with a higher reactivity resulted in more SiC whiskers in the microporous aggregates. The higher amount of SiC whiskers led to a more intertwined and compacter microporous aggregate/matrix interface structure. Thus, a higher strength was achieved for the lightweight Al2O3-C refractories. |