Effect of Steel Fibers on the Properties of Refractory Free Cement Concrete

Abstract

Free cement refractory concrete is a type of refractory concrete with replacing alumina cement by bonding materials such as white kaolin, red kaolin and fumed silica. The free cement refractory concrete used in many applications like Petrochemicals, iron furnaces and cement production industries. The research clarifies the effect of steel fibers with two types crimped steel fibers and hooked steel fibers with percentages 0.5%, 1% and 1.5% by volume from weight of bauxite aggregates. The additions of steel fibers with two types gave good properties in high temperatures where the specimens keep the dimension without failure and the properties made the best. the percentage of increasing for thermal conductivity was 44% for 1.5% crimped fibers and 42.8% for 1.5% hooked end fibers and the percentage increasing in bulk density of free cement refractory concrete was 30% for 1.5% crimped fibers and 27% for 15% hooked end fibers . From this study can be concluded that the best types of steel fibers which used in free cement refractory concrete is the crimped type with percentage 1.5%.

Keywords

• Refractory concrete, steel fibers, free cement, fumed silica, white kaolin