Production of Droplet Ceramic Tiles

The surface condition of ceramic products is very important. It determines the quality of the ceramic products. This is true for both glazing products and unglazed products. Therefore, in the production of, for example, facing tiles, special attention should be paid to the glazing process and the surface to be glazed because the surface conditions determine the thickness and the consumption of the glaze, the appearance of the tiles, and the performance of the tiles.
The style of modern buildings and houses is changing with each passing day, requiring the use of ceramic tiles of various styles and colors. Among them, the drip pattern ceramic tile is a kind of decorative material that is widely popular and has a large demand.
Ukrainian Slavyansk Ceramics previously produced this type of pattern tile by installing two sets of glazing machines on the automated tile production line. The first group is used to glaze the tiles on the front, and the second group is used to apply glaze drops (which can be the same glaze) on the glaze. That is, the tiles are covered with a glaze and the glaze surface is covered with a glaze drop pattern. The average thickness of the primary glaze was 0.37 mm glaze droplet height 3.00-0.17 mm, irregular and disorganized. When burned, the glaze drops melt and constitute a unique decorative effect.
The production of such a seemingly simple dripping pattern brick requires a large amount of expensive glaze and requires an additional machine for forming a glazing drop and applying it to the brick surface, thus resulting in higher production costs. In addition, the process is not controllable, with natural properties, and is constrained by the technological state of the glaze droplet formation machine. After the maintenance of the machine technology, at the beginning and at the end of the work, there are often no droplet patterns: there are a lot of glaze drops.
In August 2003, Slavyansk Ceramics Co., Ltd., based on the structural characteristics of ceramic tiles and the good rheological properties of particulate ceramic forming blanks, successfully developed a slag-free ceramic tile slag-free production process. In this process, the pattern is completed at the same time as the molding of the article, for which purpose the material of the shaped article, such as a ceramic compression powder, can be used.
First of all, draw the pattern brick drawings, reverse the pattern by mechanical processing to the upper die surface. When the embossing projection is pressed into the shaped brick, the molding material is also filled into the depression of the stamp at the same time. At this point, the degree of coincidence between the embossed pattern formed by the brick slab and the embossed pattern of the die face depends on the dynamic and movement parameters of the deformation zone. These parameters, in turn, are constrained by a number of factors that are often related to each other and to the values ​​of random factors. In this way, the deformed zone can be regarded as a complex system whose function is to convert the three-axis (long, wide, and high) work surface of the die into the three-coordinate front of the tile.
Then, they performed the die-casting structure, specifically the machining design test of the droplet pattern and the die face. The addition of the stamper includes: correcting the size and shape of the droplet formation member; altering the fusion pattern by making the recesses of the tile and the corresponding protrusions of the working face of the stamper; performing a smooth transition of the droplet formation member according to the stamper face. The resulting stamper was mounted on a hydraulic press die holder with a maximum pressure of 16 KN. In the case of removing the second group of glazing machines, a batch test of tiles was conducted on the company's running water production line. Two primary and secondary production materials were used in the test. The particle size composition of the compression-molded powder was: 0.5% for 1.0 mm particles; 5.0% for 1.0-0.5 mm; 72.5% for 0.5-0.2 mm; and 22.0% for 0.2 mm or less. The density of the glaze slurry was 1.53 g/cm3.
The drying and firing parameters are in accordance with the production process rules for ceramic interior wall glazed tiles.
The surface condition of the bricks formed by the new method is: If the front surface of the brick (unglazed) is regarded as zero, the protrusion on the brick is +0.65, and the recess below it is -0.5. The droplet pattern thus produced resembles the “moon side” and has a “sloping rain” and “starry sky” scene.
The production method of this ceramic tile opens up a broad prospect for the development of a new type of droplet pattern product. At the same time, the process of pattern formation can also be controlled by changing the droplet shape, size, and layout. As this method reduces glaze consumption (glaze is 9 times more expensive than pressed powder), the company's production cost for facing tiles is reduced by 25%. In addition, the process has been simplified and some process machines and equipment have been released. At present, this process has been patented in Ukraine.