2nd Meeting of the User Committee of the CORNET-Project“ViscoTherm“
May 27, 2026
On 27th May 2026 at the Łukasiewicz – Instytut Ceramiki i Materiałów Budowlanych (Ł-ICiMB) in Gliwice the 2nd meeting of the research teams and the User Committee was organised. After welcome by J. Czechowski head of the whole project Ervan Brochen introduced the antitrust rules for PbA meetings and presented background and objectives of the project Than the representatives of the teams involved in the project presented results of research in subprojects.
Presentation of the Hochschule Koblenz subproject
Following a short reminder of the potentially decisive role of melt formation in refractory product, Karolina Przydzial summaries the contribution of the Hochschule Koblenz in three main pillars.
Tailoring melt formation in high-alumina castables Melt formers: helps to relax stresses, but induces liquid sintering causing shrinkage and loss of volume stability. Shrinkage Compensators: volume expansion through in-situ reaction causing crack formation to be optimized to induce a network of microcracks.
Castable Development and sample preparation A first series of model castables has been formulated by keeping the amount of spinel forming additive constant (4 %)
Microanalytical investigation Fired samples, and thermal shocked test pieces as well as test pieces from corrosion tests will be investigated with SEM + EDX, Raman Spectroscopy and optical microscope to understand why the formulations performed well, or not that well.
Presentation of the Ł-ICiMB subproject
Jacek Podwórny introduced the key activities of the Ł-ICiMB:
Chemical thermodynamics calculations FactSage simulations identification of the impact of the melt formers: temperature at which the first liquid is formed, quantity of melts and their viscosity as well as the expected temperature and share for the new crystalline phase formation. This information is critical to sort out and select of the suitable melt formers and shrinkage compensators and hence develop refractory castable formulation with tailored ductility interval. The result of calculations were presented.
Characterisation of the mechanical and microstructural evolution with increasing temperature HT-XRD HT-RFDA measurements were described. A prototype multi-purpose high-temperature microscope is currently in development. It will allow direct observation of microstructural changes and formation of melts while subject to thermomechanical load. The system combines a thermal imaging camera to correlate temperature changes in local areas (exothermic and endothermic reactions) with microstructure observed via optical microscope under mechanical load. Additional option will be possibility of observing the test piece contour (large hot stage microscopy).
Presentation of the FGF subproject
Erwan Brochen explained that FGF has mainly three tasks within the project:
Identification of the “ductility interval” Application of the Method of Monotonic Heating (MMH) to test of the first melt formation and the investigation of the thermal diffusivity of refractory products by monitoring of the thermal gradient in test piece while being rapidly heated up and detecting melting and other phase transformations: such processes release or absorb heat (endothermal or exothermal reactions,were described. The end of interval describe loss of the volume stability characterised by T0,5 from the Refractoriness under Load (RuL) The first results of MMH measurements were presented.
Investigation of the thermal shock resistance (TSR) of the formulations with tailored ductility interval: The crucial challenge lies in the performance of efficient thermal cycling at high temperature. The applied testing method was described. The test piece is conveyed between two chambers. The bottom chamber serves as a standby furnace: heat or cool the test piece to a predetermined temperature. Ascending thermal shocks are achieved in the upper chamber by transporting the test piece into a carbon ring (susceptor) which is inductively heated to incandescence: intensive radiation able to raise the surface temperature of the test piece quickly over 1700 °C.