The recent history of refractory industry has been characterized by a continuous evolution in castables' technology. Nowadays, self-flowing, pumpable and shotcreting castables usually replace the traditional vibrated materials. However, the rheological specification of a castable determines its particle size distribution characteristics, what directly influences its mixing behavior, water consumption, creep rate, drying speed, etc. The present work describes the development of a new class of refractory named as high-performance castable. This kind of material simultaneously combines easy mixing behavior, high fluidity, low water content, superior drying speed and low creep rate. In order to develop this material, distinct particle size distributions were formulated using PSDesigner software and experiments were performed to evaluate the high-performance specified properties. The mixing behavior, the rheology, and the water consumption were measured in a rheometer for refractory castables, whereas traditional techniques were employed to determine the drying speed and the creep rate. The results demonstrated that castables formulated according to Andreasen's model (q = 0.26) reached all the specifications desired for high-performance castables.
castable; high performance; rheometer; drying; creep
