Effect of percentage (mass %) of coal on the

mechanical and thermal behavior of insulating fire

bricks manufactured by burnout process
* Md. Hamidur Rahman, Md.Tariqul Islam, Tamzid Ibn Minhaj, M.A.K. Azad, Md.Mehedi Hasan, S. Imam Hossain
and A.A.Md. Rezaul Haque
Department of Materials and Metallurgical Engineering
Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET)
Dhaka, Bangladesh
* mrhamid.buet@gmail.com

Abstract Under this present study, thermal and mechanical
behaviors dependence of insulating fire bricks (produced by
burnout process) on coal percentage (mass %) were investigated.
Waste coal powders or coal dust were collected from mines,
transport vehicles, storage areas etc. Specimen insulating bricks
were produced by uniaxial pressing in a steel mould. The main
materials were fireclay consisting of silica (63.81 mass %),
alumina (27.01 mass %), iron oxide (5.99 mass %) and varying
percentage (from 5 mass% to 20 mass %) of coal as combustible
additives. The specimens after several hours of drying at ambient
temperature (30oC), oven dried at 110oC(10 hours) and then
fired in a furnace at 1050 oC (6 hours). The investigation showed
that for a fixed coal particle size (20 to 100 m), percentage of
porosity increases whereas apparent density, cold crushing
strength and thermal conductivity decreases with increasing
percentage of coal.
Keywords Insulating fire bricks, Coal, Thermal Properties.
I. INTRODUCTION
Two important properties of refractory bricks are the cold
crushing strength and thermal conductivity. Among other
determining factors, the size, shape and distribution of pores
throughout the bulk volume have great influence on these
properties. High porosity materials tend to be highly insulating
as a result of high volume of air they trap [1], as it is known
that air is a bad conductor [2]. So incorporation of pores may
mean higher thermal resistance; which is, of course, a desired
property for insulating bricks but containing pores beyond a
certaing volume percentage may cause deterioration in overall
mechanical properties[1]. Sharp edged pores are considered as
potential threat as they can act as stress raisers under
compressive loading.Inhomogeneous distribution of pores
may lead to internal cracking due to discrepency in expansion
during heating.
study, the solid incorporatin (first method) process was
followed. Fine coal powder of a fixed particle size range was
manipulated as burnout additive. Since coal is a comparatively
expensive material to use in fire bricks, for current
investigation, waste coal powders were collected from mines,
transport vehicles, storage areas etc. However, one great
advantage obtained by using coal is the perfect spherical shape
of pores [1]. Besides coal is fully combustible, so inclusions
incorporated in the body during the process is much less. The
target of this study was to corelate the gradual variation of
coal percentage with the change in mechanical and thermal
properties of the insulating fire bricks.
II. MATERIALS AND METHODS
A. Raw materials processing and analysis
The raw materials used for the manufacturing of insulating
refractory brick were clay and coal dust. The chemical
analysis of clay is given in table I.
TABLE I. CHEMICAL ANALYSIS OF CLAY
Components Fe2O3 Al2O3 SiO2
Percentage
5.99 27.01 63.81
(mass%)
The coal powder was sieved [3-4] and divided into desired
parts. Coal particle size 20 to 100 m was taken for the
experiment. The analysis of coal is given in table II .
TABLE II. ANALYSIS OF COAL

Effective method of producing insulating fire bricks is to

incorporate carbon rich material into clay [2]. On firing, the Volatile Fixed Carbon
Components Ash Moisture
carbon-rich material burns out and leave both open and closed Matter
pore within the clay body. Two methods are conventionally
followed while manufacturing insulating bricks: one is to Percentage
5.04 2.72 28.61
63.63
incorporate carbon-rich solid material products and another is (mass%)
to incorporate liquid organic materials [2]. In this present

978-1-4799-6062-0/14/$31.002014 IEEE
B. Preparation
Mould is mainly used to give a shape of the brick. In present
case, the mould was made of mild steel which consisted of
three parts: (a) base part (b) ring shaped mould body and
(c) ramming press or load. The different parts of the mould
assembly are shown in figure 1.
Fig. 1. Parts of the mould.
C. Brick Making
Coal dust was sieved to remove any particles and
added to a mixing bowl.
Clay and coal dust were carefully mixed together.
Water was added insufficiently each time, mixing it
manually into the slurry. Care was taken so that the
water gets absorbed into the mixture instead of setting
down the bowl.
Hand moulding method [5] was followed for shaping.
The mould was filled with the previously prepared
plastic slurry and uniaxial pressure was applied.
The load was removed and the brick was ejected. The
bricks were primarily dried for several hours at the
room temperature then oven dried at 110OC for 8-10
hours for complete moisture removal.
After drying they were loaded into the furnace where
sufficient space was allowed in between the stacks to
permit required amount of oxygen for proper burning.
The temperature was slowly raised up to 400OC and
then rapidly to 1050OC. Our total firing time was
about 6 hours.
D. Measurement of density and porosity
Standard methods [6-7] were followed for determining
apparent density and percent of porosity.
Density and porosity values were measured for all speciments
.These findings were employed to graphically depict the
variation of apparent density and percent porosity with
increasing percentages of coal (Fig.4a and Fig.4b).
E. Measurement of Crushing Strength
At first, a square shaped block was prepared from the circular
brick. Then it was polished for getting accurate dimension of
one inch by one inch. After preparing the block, it was set into
the UTM [8] and load was applied on the block (Fig. 2). The
block was broken at a certain load and this load was noted for
measuring the crushing strength. Dividing the load by area
(load bearing surface), Crushing strength was calculated.
Crushing strengths for all specimens were determined by this
process and then a graph was plotted showing change of
crushing strength with increasing percentage of coal (Fig.5a) .
Fig. 2. Crushing strength measurement.
F. Measurement of Thermal Conductivity:
Lees apparatus [9] was used for measuring the thermal
conductivity of the specimens which is shown in figure 1. The
apparatus consists of a hollow cylinder C with two tubes
attached to it, known as steam chamber, two brass discs A &
B with radial holes.
Weight of the disc A was measured first and the thickness and
diameter of the specimen were measured. Then the specimen
was polished for good contact with the brass discs and placed
over the disc A. Disc B and hollow cylinder was placed over
the specimen S respectively. Steam was passed into the steam
chamber. Two thermometers were set and waited for taking
the steady temperature T1 & T2. At this steady state, the heat
conducted through the refractory specimen (which is a bad
conductor) will be eual to the heat radiated from the lower
exposed portion of the metallic disc. Then to find the heat
radiated from the lower disc, the steam supply was stopped
and steam chamber with disc B was removed. Specimen S
with disc A was placed upon by a concentric insulator disc
and heated by burner for increasing the temperature up to (T1
+10 C).Then the disc A was cooled and cooling time was
noted for every 1 C decrease in temperature.
By plotting cooling time and temperature values, a cooling
curve (Fig. 4) was drawn. A tangent was drawn to the curve at
or near temperature T2 and dT/dt was calculated. The thermal
conductivity was measured by using the following formula,
K= [ms (dT/dt) (d/D)/ (T1-T2)] cal.cm-1 c-1sec-1
Where, m=Weight of Disc A;
S=Specific heat of A (specific heat of brass);
d=Thickness of A;
D=Cross sectional area of A;
T1= steady temperature of disc B;
T2= steady temperature of disc A.
STEAM
T1
B
S
A
T2
Fig. 3. Schemetic image of Lees apparatus.
Temperature T, OC
T2 T
t
Time t, sec
Fig. 4. Cooling Curve.
The same method was followed for all the experimental
specimens and then a graph was plotted showing the
variation of thermal conductivity with increasing percentage
of coal in the specimens (Fig. 5d).
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
As seen from figure 5(a), as the percentage of the coal
increases, apparent density decreases. Density has been
decreased from 1.56 to 1.20 with increasing the percentage of
coal from 5% to 20 %.
On the contrary, porosity increases with increasing the coal
percentage in the clay body. From figure 5(b) we can see that
porosity has been increased from 42.03% to 56.60% with
increasing the coal amount from 5% to 20 %.
The coal is of lower density than clay. This coal almost
burned out during firing leaving minute amount of ash and
circular pores created against pressure of carbon-di-oxide and
vapour which are product of combustion. This means
incorporation of higher coal percentages, increases the overall
points which are captured by light weight coal rather than
clay. Again from these points almost all weights get burned
out as carbon-di-oxide gas and water vapour.
Thats why inceasing coal percentage decreased apparent
density and increased percentage porosity.
(a)
(b)
Fig. 5. Relationship between % coal and apparent density (a); Relationship
between % coal and porosity (b).
From figure 6(a) we can see that crushing strength decreases
from 19.69MPa to 8.06MPa with increase of coal content
from 5% to 20%.
Coal is a non plastic material. With the addition of coal,
binding action decreases. Moreover during firing, this coal
particles burn out and leaves the pores and decreases the
density. This results in decrease of crushing strength. Figure
6(b) shows the effect of coal addition on thermal
conductivity. It shows that thermal conductivity decreases
 from 4.18 10-4cal/cm/oC /sec to 2.42 10-4cal/cm/oC /sec
with increase of coal amount from 5% to 20%. Thermal
conductivity depends not only on the clay but also on the
size, shape, and amount of the organic particles. With the
increase of coal addition, the brick becomes lighter i.e. the
porosity increases. This porosity acts as a barrier to the flow
of heat and as a result thermal conductivity decreases.
[2] K.Kadoya,N.Matsunaga and A.Nagashima, Viscosity and Thermal
Conductivity of Dry Air in the Gaseous Phase, Journal of Physical
Chemistry, Vol 14, No.4, 1985
[3] p231 in "Characterisation of bulk solids" by Donald Mcglinchey, CRC
Press, 2005.
[4] Law, N.M.P., Faizo,P. and Guite, P., Ceramic International 2, 1984
page- 59
[5] J.D.Gilchrist, Fuels, Furnaces and Refractoroes, 1977
[6] ASTM C20 - 00(2010), Standard Test Methods for Apparent Porosity,
Water Absorption, Apparent Specific Gravity, and Bulk Density of
Burned Refractory Brick and Shapes by Boiling Wate
[7] ASTM C134-95(2010) Standard Test Methods for Size, Dimensional
Measurements, and Bulk Density of Refractory Brick and Insulating
Firebrick,
[8] Beach, Chandler B., ed. (1914). "Testing-Machine". The New Student's
Reference Work. Chicago: F. E. Compton and Co.
[9] Lees CH and Charlton JD (1896).Philosophical Magazine 41 495

(a)

(b)

Fig.6. Relationship between % coal and crushing strength (a);

Relationship between % coal and thermal conductivity (b).

IV. CONCLUSIONS
Insulating fire bricks were produced by burnout process using
coal as combustible material. The speciments were then tested
for measuring several properties like true and apparent
density, porosity, crushing strength and thermal conductivity.
It was found that, for a fixed size range of coal particles,
increasing coal percentage (within the range examined)
increases porosity in the bulk volume of brick given that clay
composition and coal composition are fixed. Increasing coal
percentage also effects crushing strenght and thermal
conductivity. As percent of coal increases (again within the
range examined), both cold crushing strength and thermal
conductivity decreases which might be thought of as indirect
effect of increasing porosity.

REFERENCES
[1] A. Bhatia, B.E.,Overview of Refractory Materials, 2011