Milwaukee Paper - Manufacture of Silica Brick

Page Introduction........................... 134 Methods of Investigation....................... 135 The Tridymite Network...................... 137 Independent Variables....................... 146 Manufacturing Operations..................... 153 Introduction Silica brick are indispensable in the manufacture of steel because they alone are able to withstand the high temperature of regenerative furnaces. All attempts to replace silica brick by other refractory materials for this purpose have failed, but the reason for this failure has remained obscure; we shall give an explanation later in this paper. Before the war, silica brick employed in France came principally from abroad, for which reason, since the beginning of hostilities, certain French steel works have been seriously handicapped. Our attention was first directed to the question by M. Bied, Engineer of the Teil Works. With him, we began certain investigations, at first using our laboratory and the furnaces of neighboring steel works. The larger part of our experiments, however, have been made in the laboratory of the Faculty of Sciences at the Sorbonne. For the heating of our samples, we are deeply obliged to MM. Charpy, Yeatmann and Guerineau. In undertaking these studies, our first aim has been to render assistance to French industry, by indicating, as precisely as possible, the necessary conditions for the manufacture of high-grade brick; but at the same time me have