REFRACTORY TERMS, DEFINITIONS
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[A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [J] [K] [L] [M] [N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [U] [V] [W] [X] [Y] [Z]
Baffle
Refractory or metallic partition designed to direct the gases through the banks of tubes.
Bag wall
One of the protective walls within a kiln around individual fireboxes (flash wall).
Basic Refractories
Refractories whose major constituent is alkaline earth oxides (i.e., lime, magnesia or both), and which may react chemically with acid refractories, acid slags, or acid fluxes at high temperatures.
Batch
The whole of the various constituents making up the mixture for one operation (batch composition).
Batt or Bat
A fired flat slab of refractory material generally of thin section, used in the firing of ceramic products.
Batter
Incline of a wall surface; also designates the angle made by a wall surface with the vertical. Also known for a slope of the face of a wall, usually causing a decrease in thickness as the wall ascends; the angle at which a face of a wall slopes from the vertical.
Battery
A series of ovens built side by side in a continuous structure.
Bauxite
A sedimentary rock that consists principality of one or more hydrates of alumina (diaspore, gibbsite, boehmite), and that may also contain clay minerals and hydrated iron oxides.
Bear or Salamander
The ‘man of iron’ and other metal which may replace part of the hearth bottom.
Belly
The part of the blast furnace, of maximum cross-section, between the stack and the bosh, and also the part of the converter in which steel is gathered at the moment of tapping.
Bevel brick
A brick shape in which one edge, between two adjacent faces, is replaced by a bevel.
Binder
A substance added to a non-plastic granular refractory material to give it workability and green and/or dry strength.
Black core or Black heart
Dark central part of a fired refractory product resulting from inadequate oxidation.
Blank or Clot
The rough shape of a product ready for final shaping, or of a refractory raw material prior to calcination.
Bloating of refractories
The permanent expansion, accompanied by substantial swelling produced by heat treatment that causes the formation of a vesicular structure.
Bond
A material that binds together the discrete grains of a refractory mix.
Bonder
A brick one-and-a-half times as wide as a standard square, and sometimes with the large faces inclined towards each other from end to end.
Bosh
The truncated central part of the blast furnace, narrowing from the lintel at the top to the tuyere belt at the bottom.
Breast or Banks
Sloping part joining the central area of the hearth to the walls in an open - hearth furnace. The breast is the sloping part at the end of the hearth. The banks are those parts at the sides of the hearth, beneath the back and front walls.
Breast wall
Side wall of a combustion space of a tank furnace, above and generally behind the tank blocks. Also brick wall between pillars of a pot furnace, and in front of or surrounding the front of a port.
Bridge wall
Brickwork in a furnace, separating the combustible or fuel from the working chamber. Also, the wall between the slag chamber and the regenerator of an open-hearth furnace. Also, refractory wall refractory wall towards the end of a furnace, designed to ensure completion of combustion or to limit combustion chamber.
Bullers’ ring
A particular type of ceramic device for measuring temperature or, more accurately, heat work.
Bulhead, Key brick, Cupola brick or Crown brick
A brick in which the side faces are inclined towards each other in such a way that one of the end faces is shorter than the other, used particularly at the apex of an arch.
Bursting
Disintegration following a permanent increase in volume, particularly of chrome-magnesite refractories wghich have absorbed iron oxide.
Burn
The heat treatment to which refractory materials are subjected in the firing process.
Burning (firing) of Refractories
The final heat treatment in a kiln to which refractory brick and shapes are subjected in the process of manufacture for the purpose of developing bond and other necessary physical and chemical properties.
Buttress wall or Pinion wall