Refractories have unique capabilities such as sustaining their shape and properties at extreme conditions such as the combination of high temperatures and thermal shock, contact with molten metals and slags and in some circumstances resistance to erosion from abrasive particles. Given the large processing output of the heavy industries such as the cementand steel ones which both require high temperature processes, the refractories structures span various meters and weight of several tons. As the water removal stage of hydraulic bonded castables in industrial sites takes hours (10-60 h) due to the risk of explosive spalling, efforts to mitigate it are commonly studied. This has provided theoretical understanding of the general aspects of drying and important tools, such as the thermogravimetry analysis (TGA), for the design of refractory compositions with higher explosive spalling resistance. However, the optimization of this process is still far from the industrial reality especially because the actual linings that require the drying are orders of magnitude larger than the samples considered in the laboratory tests. Therefore, this study proposed the analysis of the sample volume effect on the water removal dynamics through TGA of high alumina castables with calcium aluminate cement...