A Study of the Silica Refractories

INTRODUCTION The magnitude of the thermal expansion of silica brick, and its inability to withstand rapid temperature changes, present problems of considerable importance in the manufacture of siliceous refractories. In the study represented by the experimental data herein described, these problems are considered from the point of view afforded by the results of recent investigators: Fenner and his associates of the "Geophysical Laboratory, Washington, D. C., who have established the stability relations of the silica minerals, and Endell and co-workers in Berlin, who have studied the changes brought about in the constitution of siliceous refractory materials upon the application of heat. In the process of manufacture, the quartzite from which the brick is made changes in part into cristobalite and tridymite. The attempt is herein made to determine by microscopic methods the degree of transformation in various specimens of test bricks manufactured at slightly varying temperatures of burning, with varying coarseness of grain, and to determine the effect of repeated burning. The effect of variations