Carol Jackson, Chairman and CEO of HarbisonWalker International (HWI), has been elected as the incoming President of the World Refractory Association (WRA).
Carol Jackson started her two-year term in January 2020, succeeding Stefan Borgas, CEO RHI Magnesita, who has led the organization since January 2018.
RHI Magnesita, announced its results for the six months ended 30 June 2019. Stefan Borgas, CEO RHI Magnesita, said “despite difficult end markets, we have seen a very strong performance from our Industrial Division, offsetting a slightly softer performance from the Steel Division in more challenging market conditions.”
The 10th Freiberg Refractory Forum will be held at Alte Mensa, 09599 Freiberg on 11 December 2019. Invited speakers are Prof. Dr Helge Jansen (Refratechnik Steel/DE), Uwe Kremer (Trimet Aluminium SE/DE), Dr Hans-Jürgen Schneider (Calsitherm/DE), Ondrej Jankosky (University of Chemistry and Technology Prague/CZ) and Tony Wetzig (Bergakademie Freiberg/DE).
IREFCON 2020 will be held in Kolkata/IN at the Westin Rajarhat on 12–14 February 2020. Rinus Sebring from Tata Steel Europe is invited as keynote speaker.
At the Fraunhofer Center for High-Temperature Materials and Design HTL in Bayreuth/DE, the new building for a fibre pilot plant, unique in Europe, was inaugurated on 12 April 2019. A total of EUR 20 million (including EUR 11 million for the production lines) were invested in the facility with a useful area of 2000 m2.
Monolithic refractory castables can contain different bonding agents. The commonly used cement and silica sol binders have different advantages for their usage. The cement bonding with calcium aluminate cement is characterised by the development of high strength at a temperature up to 1000 °C. A general disadvantage is, that corresponding linings need to be heated up very sensitive, especially at the initial heat-up.
Over the past decades, numerical simulation has proved to be a decisive tool for engineers. In the field of refractory technologies, numerical modelling helps increasing the understanding of the behaviour of refractory linings under service conditions, checking the validity of new designs and potentially predicting the failure of refractory structures.
The fluid flow characteristics in the mould have a significant impact on the quality of the cast product. The flow in a casting mould is influenced by the geometry of the casting nozzle and by electromagnetic stirring (M-EMS). To improve the quality of the as-cast product, the solidification structure shall be characterized by a large central equiaxed zone.
For cement bonded refractory castables explosive spalling due to removal of free water and/or dehydration of cement hydrate have always been challenging. Naturally, cement free castables are very interesting due to fast dry-out and excellent hot properties.
Today, many different metals are being produced using the Investment Casting (IC) process. To ensure final high quality castings it is necessary to know the influencing parameters of all the different steps during the whole process including the wax pattern, the ceramic shell and the final casted part.