Modelling viscosity of alumina-containing silicate melts

A structurally-related model for the viscosity of silicate melts developed by the present authors has been extended to melts containing alumina. In th e binary Al2O3-SiO2 system, viscosity was modelled by treating Al2O3 as a m etal oxide, i.e., as a network modifier based on the similarities in the ge neral behaviour of the binary systems. The ternary and higher-order systems were modelled using only the parameters for binary silicate melts without introduction of high-order parameters. The model has been validated for ter nary and higher-order (up to 6-component) aluminosilicate melts over broad temperature and composition ranges against an extensive collection of exper imental data. Good agreement between the experimental data and the viscosit y values calculated by the model was obtained.