Effect of zirconia particle size on the properties of alumina-spinel castables

The industrial application of alumina-spinel refractory castables has crucial requirements on the service performance. Thus, the effects of different sized desilicated zirconia particles on the castables microstructure, thermal-mechanical properties and high temperature elastic modulus have been investigated. The zirconia particle sizes were varied from 1000 µm to 2.5 µm (d50). It was observed that the finer (below 88 µm) zirconia particles were beneficial to improve the cold modulus of rupture (CMOR) and the hot modulus of rupture (HMOR), but could not effectively enhance the thermal shock resistance. Fine zirconia particles can homogeneously disperse in the matrix and significantly promote the sintering process. Accompanied with the phase transformation of zirconia, both the high density of matrix cracks and the strong ceramic bonding (between the coarse grains and the matrix) were found in the refractory castables, which was responsible for an increase of CMOR. However, the binding characteristic could also give rise to the high stored elastic energy that was adverse to the thermal shock resistance, and the excessive amount of preexisting matrix cracks could induce more microdamage during the thermal shock. Additionally, it was proposed that the second-phase dispersion reinforcement and the highly ceramics bonding resulted in the superior HMOR when introducing fine ZrO2 particles.