چكيده لاتين :
Being brittle and having low thermal conductivity, refractories suffer damage and
sometimes fail in service as a result of thermal shock. While the approach of those making finegrained
technical ceramics is to make their products sufficiently strong to withstand thermal
stresses; the refractory technologist is more cunning. He uses, often little known, devices to
provide resistance to thermal shock that minimise but do not eliminate damage to the component.
In this paper the basic equations ofthermal conduction and elasticity are presented andfollowed
by some immediate results that should guide the designer ofcomponents subject to severe thermal
environments. The influence of size and shape of the refractory components is then discussed
along with ways in which refractory producers can engineer the thermal and mechanical
properties. In particular, the methods used to tailor fracture behaviour to optimise the thermal
shock resistance are treated in some detail.
