What is Unshaped Refractory Material

Unshaped refractory materials mainly include three types: refractory castables, refractory mortars, and refractory cement.

Refractory castables are the most widely used unshaped refractory materials. It is mainly used for the lining of heating equipment such as various heating furnaces and kilns. Some high-quality varieties can also be used for high-blast furnaces.

Refractory mortar is a joint refractory material (available in powder form and mud form). Used as joint material for refractory masonry. It consists of refractory powder and admixtures, and of course, the finished product is usually mixed. Refractory cement comes in two forms: dry powder (in bags) and mud (in barrels).

Refractory cement (not ordinary cement) is a refractory material used as a binder and refractory powder when manufacturing refractory castables. It is a semi-finished product.

The summary is: that both castables and refractory cement are refractory products that can be used directly; while refractory cement is the binder of refractory castables (refractory concrete) and cannot be used alone.

Fireclay as a raw material is often called “refractory clay” and is usually made into clay bricks and clay refractory castables.

But for “refractory clay”, we generally should not think of it as “refractory mortar”. Usually refractory mortar is considered to be in a “mud” state (ordinary mortar). Yes, mortar is a state containing cement slurry. For dry powder (powder) refractory mortar, we usually call it: dry powder refractory mortar.

Add another concept, the difference between cement (ordinary cement) and concrete (concrete) used in general construction: the fact is that cement is one of the components of concrete, that is to say, concrete = cement + sand + small gravel.