Synthesis, sintering and thermal shock resistance estimation of porous cordierite by IR heating technique

A thermal shock fracture test performed by centrally heating disk shaped specimens is found to have advantages over traditional water quench method. Thermal shock property evaluation of porous materials; especially porous cordierite is seldom undergone. In the present work, porous cordierite has been prepared by super critical (ethanol) drying and freeze drying of triphasic sol. Even after high temperature sintering cordierite aerogel could not be well densified because of their inherent textural features. Thermal properties of porous cordierite such as thermal conductivity (λ), thermal diffusivity (κ) and specific heat (Cp) were evaluated by laser flash technique. Thermal shock resistance (R1c) was estimated by infrared radiation heating (IRH) technique by centrally heating disk shaped specimens and evaluating the temperature profile during cracking with the help of acoustic emission (AE) sensor connected to the specimen. Here, synthesis, sintering and thermal property evaluation has been briefly discussed.