ABSTRACT
In the United States, the year 1914 marked the opening of a new era in refractory
technology with the manufacture of specialties or monolithic refractories. The
term “specialties” was the official U.S. government term for the classification
of unshaped and unburned refractory materials (1). During the 1920s and 1930s,
important advances were made in new and improved monolithic refractories,
and a big increase of the production of such refractories (especially plastics
and rammings) took place during World War II. The demand for monolithic
refractories of all kinds increased in the emergency “get-it-out-yesterday” atmos-
phere of World War II. One special wartime use of monolithic refractories was in
dehydration plants, which produced millions of pounds of powdered eggs to be
shipped to the American military and manufacturers. The production of ramming
mixes, castables, mortars, and coatings increased by more than one third between
1937 and 1943 (1).
