What Are Refractory Anchors? This week’s boiler tip video looks at refractory, pieces designed to protect things that can’t take extreme heat conditions. To keep the refractory in place it has to be anchored. This Boiler U video is designed to help boiler professionals understand the basics of their profession.
Refractory pieces are pieces made from a high heat-resistance material that is put in place to protect materials with much lower heat resistance.
Due to their nature, these pieces have to be anchored in place by metallic or ceramic anchors, pieces of material that form an interface between the refractory and the base piece.
Without refractory, a piece with lower heat resistance, like a manhole into a boiler, would suffer severe heat damage and fail, causing grave damage to space around it and rendering the boiler or kiln nonfunctional. Anchoring refractory is how the refractory piece stays in contact with its target and doesn’t fall out or take damage in the process of opening or closing the non-heat-resistant piece that it was attached to.
Refractory anchors are a critical part of heat flow systems. Understanding how they work is a major part of the job for any boiler technician.
