Abstract
Korean tremoitic talc, wollastonite and clay have been used to develop a wall tile body to appropriate to the fast firing process. Some of ceramic properties of the raw materials were investigated by X-ray diffraction, thermal analysis and chemical analysis. The body compositions were formulated from the range of 35~75% tremolitic talc, 0~30% wollastonite and 25~35% plastic clay. Thermal gravity analysis and thermal expansion were tested for each of unfired bodies to study the correlation between thermal dehydration and linear shrinkage during the firing procedure. Linear shrinkage and water absorption of the fired bodies at the various temperature were taken as a measures for determining the proper firing range of the bodies. Increasing the content of wollastonite and firing temperature, the thermal expansion of the fired body showed the gradual decrease, and the thermal expansion curves showed a tendency to straighten. These observations may be resulted from the fact that the amounts of diopside and anorthite formed were gradually increased and those of quartz relatively decreased. The optimum compositions of the wall tile bodies for fast firing are 30% clay, 10~20% wollastonite and 50~60% tremolitic talc.