Structural and thermomechanical properties of stove tile ceramics

Abstract

The thermomechanical and thermodilatometric behavior of fired heatproof stove tile ceramic material Letovice, which contains quartz, mullite and small amounts of feldspar and glassy phase, was studied while increasing temperature up to 1100 °C. Young's modulus was measured using the non-destructive sonic resonant method mf-TMA. To find actual dimensions of the sample, thermodilatometry was carried out at the same temperature regime as mf-TMA. A significant increase in Young's modulus was observed in the region of the α → β transformation of quartz. This can be explained by the healing effect of the induced radial stresses around the quartz grains on microcracks. The presence of glassy phase caused a small decrease of Young's modulus at temperatures above ~950 °C.