From October 13th to 16^th, the ATHOR team attended and presented their work at the Unified International Technical Conference of Refractories (UNITECR 2019). UNITECR is a biennial international technical refractories conference established in 1987 founded by four member associations: the American Ceramic Society, the German Refractories Association, Association Latino americana de Fabricantes de Refractarios and the Technical Association of Refractories, Japan.

UNITECR 2019 was hosted in Pacifico Yokohama, Yokohama, Japan, one of the largest convention complexes in the world. The concept of the UNITECR 2019 was: “Refractories for the Future: Collaboration among Customers, Manufacturers and Academia in pursuit of Future High-Temperature Technology.” UNITECR 2019 presented the world with the future of high-temperature technologies, to help making environmentally friendly world with conserving natural resource.

859 participants from 37 countries around the world attended this large conference. The total number of presentations was 241, however, 35 of them were canceled due to typhoon Hagibis. Out of 15 ATHOR young researchers, 11 presented their work at the conference:

• ESR-1 Diana Vitiello: “Thermal Properties Characterization of Refractory Materials Used in the Insulation Layer of SteelLadles”
• ESR-2 Robert Kaczmarek: “Thermomechanical Behaviour of an Alumina Spinel Refractory for Steel Ladle Applications”
• ESR-3 Farid Asadi: “ »Numerical Modeling of Wedge Splitting Test by Discrete Element Approach: Flat Joint Contact Model”
• ESR-4 Camille Reynaert: “Impact of Composition Changes of Alumina-rich Slags on the Corrosion of Refractories Found in Steel Ladles”
• ESR-5 Ilona Kieliba: “Alumina-Spinel Castables under Thermal Cycling Conditions – In Situ Characterization”
• ESR-7 Vahid Tadion: “The Influence of Crystallisation on Thermal Shock Behaviour of a Fused Silica Refractory Castable Concrete”
• ESR-9 Lucas Teixeira : “Creep Characterization of Refractory Materials at High Temperature Using the Integrated Digital Image Correlation”
• ESR -10Mahmoud Ali: “Thermomechanical Modelling of Refractory Mortarless Masonry Wall Subjected to Biaxial Compression”
• ESR-11 Rafael Oliveira:” The Characterization of Joint Behaviour in Mortarless Refractory Masonry”
• ESR-12 Sina Darban: “Thermal Shock Resistance of Fired Corundum-Spinel Brick and Spinel-containing LCC”
• ESR-15 Pratik Gajjar: “Effect of Creep on Refractory Masonry Wall Subjected to Cyclic Temperature Loading”

At the end of the conference, the organizing committee announced the excellent presentation award winners. Two of our young researchers received this award ESR-2 Robert Kaczmarek from University of Limoges and ESR-9 Lucas Teixeira from University of Orléans.