Semi-silica brick is an aluminosilicate refractory product containing 15-30% Al2O3. It is usually made of fire clay containing quartz, pyrophyllite (Al2O3 · 4SiO2 · H2O), refractory clay or tailings of kaolin.
According to the manufacturing method, semi-silica brick can be divided into fired brick and unfired brick. Unfired bricks are made with water glass as the binding agent. The manufacturing process of fired bricks is similar to that of fire clay brick.
Whether to add clinkers is up to the properties of raw materials and refractory bricks. Siliceous clay has small firing shrinkage and the clinker is not required. In order to improve the thermal shock resistance of semi-silica bricks, 10%-20% clinker is added.
If the raw materials contain a few fusible materials and coarse quartz grains, semi-silica bricks have low density and poor strength but good thermal shock resistance and high softening temperature under load. On the contrary, the refractory bricks have bad refractory performance and poor thermal shock resistance. Besides, according to the working conditions, fine or coarse quartz or silica clinker is added.
Under 1250℃, semi-silica brick has small volume shrinkage. At high temperature, with the increase of the liquid phase, the brick has large volume shrinkage. So, its firing temperature is higher than that of the fire clay brick, generally within 1350℃-1410℃ to obtain high density refractory bricks.
When pyrophyllite is used as the raw material of semi-silica brick, the manufacturing method is up to the chemical composition of pyrophyllite. The main chemical composition of pyrophyllite has small weight loss after dehydrated and can maintain its lattice structure. It can be directly used to manufacture bricks. In order to avoid firing expansion, it can also be calcined into clinker and added when batching.
Semi-silica brick has good volume stability at high temperature and can help to improve the integrity of the masonry and reduce the slag erosion to the masonry. When contacting hot slag, it can from a layer of glaze-like substances on the surface which can block pores, prevent the penetration of slags into the brick.
Semi-silica brick is mainly used in the ladle lining and the refractory layer of the lower steel casting system. In addition, it is also used in the roof of heating furnaces, regenerator checker bricks, the lining of Cupola furnaces, the hearth and flues of furnaces.