President’s Column and Institute News


made from them, it just gives an inkling of the massive number of applications we service as an industry.


As we all know, even in common applications the demands of customers and their equipment can vary massively and require


www.ireng.org refractories with very different properties and


characteristics. For many applications, simply providing a lining is not enough as the refractories can also influence the final end user product quality in many different ways. Besides the refractories themselves there is a host of supportive engineering required to get the best out of many refractories, be it software, electrical or mechanical hardware. Or, more commonly and perhaps it is more correct to say that it is the refractories supporting the engineering. A subtlety often lost on many of us.


From coke ovens to blast furnaces and their stoves. From BOS to plasma furnaces. From boilers to cat crackers, from cement to foundry, and from aerospace to automotive and defence. The list goes on, the applications for refractories are indeed diverse, demanding and often quite amazing. For example, today I was asked to provide a recommendations for an application I have never come across before, a lining for explosives and rocket fuel disposal. As a colleague commented, “it really is rocket science!”


Add to this heady mix the structures and people we work with every day. The raw material suppliers, the people in the companies where we work, the services we take for granted such as transport. Our competitors and customers, many of whom we often regard as friends such is the close nature of our work. Even organisations such as the Institute of Refractories Engineers. This truly is a diverse industry and I’m grateful and blessed to work in it. Ok, I admit, sometimes it feels like a curse but then this quickly diminishes when you take a step back to look around and take the time to stop and smell the roses.


People is a theme that I find myself subconsciously coming back to in many of these columns that I find myself writing.


People are so important yet so ever-present that we can often not consider them and take them for granted. Yet it is the people who make our work both a joy and a challenge. It is people who put the effort into designing and developing the most amazing systems, engineering and materials. It is people who force inspiration for new ideas and solutions to the simplest and most complex issues.


I suppose, this is also part of the fascination for me. Meeting and learning new people, working with those who seek to challenge us and of course, being able to find solutions with them.


Part of this enjoyment is the great range of characters that we are blessed to meet along the way. Some of these characters can be comedic, social, straight laced, very direct or even abrasive. Regardless of their character I believe without doubt that all have a great passion for their work, even if they don’t realise it.


As an industry, we must continue to encourage and promote that passion and the characters that we meet. This is often easy to dismiss this important area, to stifle it in bureaucracy and bury it in systems. If we do this we not only suffocate the creativity needed to solve challenges effectively but we also bleach out the characters of the industry who have brought so much success, colour and joy to our workplaces. In my (cough) almost 30 years in the refractories industry, it is perhaps the number of creative minds and true characters in the industry has brought me the most joy. Make no mistake, there are still many of us out there and we are more common than you would think.


It brightens my day every time I meet one of these characters and every time an interesting challenge comes along. Thankfully this is very often indeed in our world of refractories.


Callum Arthur President


Institute of Refractories Engineers


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September 2017 Issue


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