A refractory brick or shape stacked in an open grid, called checkerwork, that fills glass furnace regenerators and blast furnace hot blast stoves. Hot exhaust gas heats the checkers, then the flow reverses and the stored heat preheats combustion air or blast. Checker material is zoned by temperature, with silica, magnesia or high alumina at the hot top and fireclay lower down, and plugging by carryover or condensates is the usual failure.
Regenerator checkers are plugging up with batch carryover, pressure drop across the port is way up.
Also heard as
- checkers
- checkerwork
- checker brick
Related terms
Silica brick
Brick of over 93 percent silica with high hot strength but sharp volume changes when cooled below red heat.
Crown
Arched refractory roof of a glass furnace or other large furnace, often built of silica brick.
Alkali attack
Damage from potassium and sodium compounds that react with alumina-silica refractories and swell them apart.
Doghouse
Small extension on a glass melting furnace where the batch is charged into the tank.