In spite of the technological interest, the drying process of refractory castables faces several difficulties to be an efficient operation. Analyzing the scientific publications and the applied patents for castables formulations less sensitive to explosion, can be noted that the achievements experienced in this field are mostly based on empirical tests. The purpose of this work was to evaluate the performance of polypropylene fibers addition in order to increase the permeability of refractory castables. The fibers presented a aspect ratio (ratio between length and diameter) from 6 to 1600 and some of then are usually applied in refractory industry. The results of fibers' thermal characterization (DSC and TGA) were compared with those obtained by low and high temperature permeametry (LTP, 25 ºC and HTP, until 800 ºC, respectively) for castables formulations containing 0.09% weight (0.36% in volume) of polypropylene fibers.
refractory castables; permeability; polymeric fibers; length
