THE DRY OUT PROFILE OF STEEL MICRO-FIBER CONTAINING REFRACTORY CASTABLES

摘要

Polymeric fibers have been shown to improve castables dry out by at least two different mechanisms: (i) permeability increase after fiber burn out and (ii) mechanical reinforcement. Polypropylene and polyaramid are examples of fibers performing with such characteristics, respectively. This paper shows that steel fibers are also capable of improving castables dry out by reducing the risk of explosive spalling through mechanical reinforcement. To accomplish that, however, they need to be distributed as close as possible to each other in the matrix, which depends on their size and volume concentration in the refractory. Steel micro-fibers (20μm diameter) were effective in avoiding castable explosion (0.36%-vol), whereas regular fibers (450μm diameter) attained an outstanding performance when used in a much higher quantity (30%-vol.).