Book reviews

Abstract

CERAMICS FROM REFRACTORY OXIDESiReviewed byl~. V. Degtyareva UDC 666.762(049).3)The new high-temperature processes and installations in which use is made of various media, the accelerated process in existing equipment, and developments in nuclear engineering and energetics call for an ever expanding use of materials based on refractory oxides. The most useful of these oxides are A120~, SiO2, MgO, CaO, Cr203, and ZrO 2. Mutlite, spinel, zircon, and forsterite are also promising materials in this context. $ Soviet production of oxide refractories and superduty ceramics from oxide compounds has not yet reached an adequate level of development. Products of corundum and zircon ceramics are also being produced merely in experimental batches.In other countries corundum refractories and ceramics are used extensively in ferrous metallurgy for the lining of blast furnace stacks and runners, of the suction and discharge pipes of in-vacuo steel refining equipment, of mixers for cast iron storage, furnaces for calcining anthracite, plates for the slide gates of steelcasting ladles, etc. Refractory ceramics processed from alumina, calcium, and zirconium oxides are very promising materials for the lining of magnetohydrodynamic equipment, acceleration tubes, sensors for measuring the acidity of steel, etc.All these facts stimulated the interest of research workers in the development of a technology and the study of the properties of refractories and sintered ceramics based on refractory oxides~ the volume of information in this field has grown significantly in recent years. The department of the chemical technology of ceramics and refractories of the D. L Mendeleev Institute of Chemical Technology in Moscow is one of the centers for the development of technologies, the preparation of the composition, and the study of the properties of ceramics and refractories based on refractory oxides. The book reviewed here is a monograph by the staff of that department in which they generalize the results of their research in this field and it is therefore of considerable importance.In Chap. 1 the authors describe the principles of the production of ceramics from refractory oxides and examine not only the scientific aspects (the kinetics of the grinding of the materials, the processes of the chemical precipitation of the compositions, the mechanism of sintering, and the kinetics of the consolidation of the refractory oxides and their compotmds) but also the technological conditions of the heat treatment of the starting material and of the grinding process (including questions relating to the equipment to be used), the methods of introducing additives, the methods of forming the product including vibromolding and isostatic molding, and the characteristics of the sintering process. This chapter also contains an interesting review of the basic properties of ceramics processed from pure oxides in which comparative data are given for the cold-crushing strength, elastic modulus, thermal expansion, thermal conductivity, thermal-shock resistance, cr...