Investigation of the thermomechanical properties of industrial refractories: the French programme PROMETHEREF

This paper summarises the work that has been done in the framework of the French programme PROMETHEREF. This programme was concerned with the thermomechanical properties at high temperature of two industrial refractories: fused-cast materials for glass melting and alumina castables for steel production. At high temperature, both materials exhibit creep, that has been characterised by tension, compression and bending tests. The microstructural mechanisms of deformation have been investigated and allowed the macroscopic viscoplasticity to be understood. Both types of materials exhibit damage processes that have also been characterised mechanically and microstructurally. The nature and the adhesion of the aggregates have been shown to have a great influence on the mechanical behaviour of the castables, as well as the continuous zirconia skeleton observed in high-zirconia fused-cast refractories by X-rays tomography.