Thermal Profiling System for Ceramic kilns

Ceramic Kilns  

Problems Faced By Ceramic Industries

Ceramic kilns play an important role in the quality of products manufactured. The product ranges from ceramic sanitary wares to tiles industries. The output of a ceramic product will be drastically different if it is not burned at the proper temperature. It’s also crucial to utilize the proper kiln for the production process. This is due to the fact that there are several factors to consider while ring ceramics in a kiln. Many factors might cause the end product to fail or break during the ring process. The technical definition of the ceramic kiln is a thermally enclosed chamber, similar to an oven, that generates temperatures high enough to finish an operation like hardening, drying, or chemical reactions.

A kiln must be able to high-fire the clay at temperatures high enough and evenly enough to cause a clay reaction and permanently change the clay’s body into a hardened state. Generally the firing temperature is 1200°C (2190F) to 1400°C (2550F). Thus proper temperature monitoring is required for assuring the quality of products.

                                       Figure 1: A ceramic kiln car carrying thousands of sanitary wares in a ceramic factory.

It’s not enough to just create the shape in the clay. The clay must next be burned once that shape has been produced. The burning of clay can alter the clay in a variety of ways. The carbon coring will be there if carbon and sulfur are present in the product after firing. Carbon coring is the gray or black layer under the surface of fire clay.

Major Problems

Carbon Coring

All clay will have some carbon and sulfur that will need to burn off in the ring process. During the fire process, the clay transforms from a soft, delicate substance to a rock-hard, solid one. If some amount of carbon remains unburnt after the ring process will lead to black finish and weak products.

Dunting

When clay is heated, it can temporarily expand about 1-2 % of its original size during the heating phase, and then compress to around 1-2 percent of its original size during the cooling process. The pottery will break if it is heated or cooled too rapidly. Dunting is the term for this type of cracking.

Quartz Inversion

The water in the clay must be able to drain out after it is burnt. However, removing the water too rapidly can cause steam to build inside the clay. The bits of clay in the furnace will effectively be broken as a result of this. When water is removed too quickly, quartz inversion develops.

Indigenous Solution Provided by TEMPSENS

These problems can be resolved if we closely monitor the ring temperature for a specific time interval. This will allow uniform curing of products. Here, comes the role of our indigenously designed and developed in India Tempsens Smartack 10 data logger and Thermal barriers. With this temperature proling systems, one can closely monitor and optimize their ceramic kiln ring temperature and duration.

One can get a temperature monitoring system of the products by attaching thermocouples to the product like tiles, sanitary wares and get the actual temperature of the product in the data logger. The data logger needs protection from the prevailing temperature in the kiln, which is done by keeping the data logger in the thermal barrier.

After the completion of the process, one can download the data from the data logger and convert it to meaningful information in infralog software developed by TEMPSENS. After analyzing the information one can take quick and accurate decisions to solve the curing problems leading to increased quality and productivity.

                                           Figure 2: A typical traveling temperature report generated by Infralogsoftware.

Customer Benefits

• One can monitor, control and improve the curing process.
• Improve productivity and efficiency by using accurate prole data to increase the quality of final products.
• Waste is eliminated and product quality is guaranteed.
• Highlight kiln problems immediately and use data information to recommend corrective action.

For More Details:-https://tempsens.com/catalog/thermal-profiling-system.html