This collection of over 200 papers from the 9th Biennial Worldwide Congress on Refractories is broad-ranging and diverse in perspective. Topics include steelmaking refractories, castable technology, global refractories education and technology and industrial applications. Numerous papers are from representatives from major international steel companies.

This collection includes the analysis, development, and operation of high-temperature processes that involve the extraction and processing of material resources, production, and treatment of metals, alloys, and ceramic materials. Contributions describe innovative methods for achieving property enhancement, impurity segregation and removal, byproduct recovery, waste minimization, energy efficiency, and utilization of complex ores. Also included are various technical, economic, and environmental issues associated with commercial-scale high-temperature processing methods.

Proceedings containing 231 manuscripts that were submitted and approved for the 13th biennial worldwide refractories congress recognized as the Unified International Technical Conference on Refractories(UNITECR), held September 10-13, 2013.

The book provides, in a compact format, basic knowledge and practically oriented information on specific properties of refractory materials, on their testing and inspection, and on interpretation of test results. Tables and illustrations are used to clarify fundamental concepts on a comparative basis. This pocket format manual provides an overview of the diverse range of modern refractories and their application-relevant properties. Its main feature is a series of practice-derived articles by well-known authors in the field on the various material groups and their characteristic property data. The content has deliberately been kept concise and instructive, abstracting and more detailed works are referenced.

The 27 peer-reviewed papers collected here together offer a plenitude of up-to-date information on “Refractories: Recent Developments in Materials, Production and Use”. The papers are conveniently arranged into RAW MATERIALS, TESTING, MANUFACTURING, SELECTION, DESIGN AND USE, SYSTEM MODELING, SIMULATION AND SELECTION CRITERIA.

Characterization is an important and fundamental step in material research before and after processing. This bookfocuses on the characterization of minerals, metals, and materials as well as the application of characterization results on the processing of these materials. It is a highly authoritative collection of articles written by experts from around the world. The articles center on materials characterization, extraction, processing, corrosion, welding, solidification, and method development. In addition, articles focus on clays, ceramics, composites, ferrous metals, non-ferrous metals, minerals, electronic, magnetic, environmental, advanced and soft materials. This book will serve the dual purpose of furnishing a broad introduction of the field to novices while simultaneously serving to keep subject matter experts up-to-date.