Basic knowledge on rheological behaviour of highly concentrated suspensions is nowadays a very important issue in the refractory industry, regarding the production of high-performance castables. Refractory castables can be considered as a system containing aggregates and particles larger than 100 mm and finer ones constituting a matrix. In that system, the rheological behaviour is mainly determined by the viscosity of the matrix, although it is affected by parameters related to the aggregates. This work simulates a fluid-particle system through the use of a glass-alumina particle composite which viscosity was evaluated at temperatures close to 600 ºC. A beam-bending viscometer was employed to measure the viscosity of the composites. The system glass-particle has presented a maximum viscosity around 50 vol-% of particles. The newtonian behaviour is verified for this system up to 40 vol-% of particles in the temperature range 560-670 °C. The results of this work indicate the possibility of rheology simulation of refractory castables and insights on the creep at the working conditions.
viscosity; glass-particle composite; glass; alumina
