Abstract
Coal ash is industry waste exhausted lots of amount by electric power plant. The particle sizes of coal ash, especially coal fly ash are very fine, and the chemical component are extremely resemble with Okinawa-Kucha clay. From the point of view that clay is composed of particles of micro meter size in diameter, we should try the application for fabrication of composite material using coal fly ash and clay. The comparison of the mechanical properties of composite material using coal fly ash and clay were performed during electric furnace burning and spark plasma sintering. As a result, the bending strength of composite material containing the coal ash 10% and fired at 1423K using the electric furnace after press forming at 30 MPa showed the highest value of 47 MPa. This phenomenon suggests a reinforcement role of coal ash particles to clay base material. In spark plasma sintering process, the bending strength of the composite material containing the clay 5-10% to fly ash base material fired at 1473K and pressured at 20 MPa showed the highest value of 88 MPa. This result indicates a binder effect of clay according to the liquid phase sintering of melted clay surrounding around coal fly ash particles surface.
