Indian Journal of Applied Engineering Research

C. I Nwoye ¹, U Obialor ², S.O Nwakpa ¹, A.O Agbo ³, E.M Ameh ³

Affiliations
1 Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, NG
2 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Abia Polythecnic, Aba, NG
3 Department of Materials and Metallurgical Engineering, Enugu State University of Science & Technology, Enugu, NG

Abstract

Assessment and prediction of the shrinkage sustained in fired clay materials has been carried out based on multi-factors such as bulk density, drying temperature and evaporating surface area. The clay materials were prepared using different grain sizes; <100μm, 100- 300μm, 300-1000 μm and their respective mixtures. The derived model. S = [ exp(eγ + 1.2 x 10-7 ϑ - 0.0002θ )]0.8929 indicates that shrinkage is dependent on the resultant bulk density of the clay body following firing at a temperature of 12000C, the drying temperature and the evaporating surface area.. The validity of the model is ischolar_mained on the core model expression. ln [S1.12 ] = eγ + 1.2 x 10-7 ϑ - 0.0002θ where both sides of the expression are correspondingly approximately equal to 4. The maximum deviation of the model-predicted shrinkage from the corresponding experimental values is 11% which is within the acceptable range of deviation limit for experimental results. The evaluated standard error incurred in predicting shrinkage for each values of the bulk density considered as obtained from experiment and derived model are 0.1370 and 0.0189% respectively.

Keywords

Model, Shrinkage, Clay Materials, Fired Bulk density, Drying

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