GLASS MELTING FURNACE

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a glass melting furnace which can grasp the deposition condition of a deposit efficiently.SOLUTION: A glass melting furnace comprises an irradiation antenna which is composed of a plurality of antenna elements arranged in a matrix form and irradiating a melting space with electromagnetic waves, a reflection wave antenna which receives reflection waves of the electromagnetic waves reflected by the melting space, a transmitted wave antenna which receives transmitted waves of the electromagnetic waves transmitted through the melting space, a plurality of temperature sensors which are arranged so as to correspond to the antenna elements and detect a temperature of molten glass, a detection portion which supplies power to the irradiation portion to make the irradiation portion irradiate with electromagnetic waves and outputs reflection wave signals representing reflection waves, transmitted wave signals representing transmitted waves and temperature measurement signals representing the temperature of the molten glass and a signal processing portion which identifies concentrations of the platinum-group elements as deposit by searching a database created by representing the correlation between individual intensities of the reflection waves and the transmitted waves with concentrations of the platinum-group elements in the molten glass as a numerical-value-table graph with the temperature of the molten glass as the parameter. 【課題】堆積物の堆積状況を効率的に把握することが可能なガラス溶融炉を提供する。【解決手段】マトリックス状に配置された複数のアンテナエレメントから構成され、溶融空間に電磁波を照射する照射アンテナと、電磁波が溶融空間で反射した反射波を受信する反射波アンテナと、電磁波が溶融空間を透過した透過波を受信する透過波アンテナと、複数のアンテナエレメントに対応して配置され、溶融ガラスの温度を検出する複数の温度センサと、照射部に給電して電磁波を照射させるとともに、反射波を示す反射波信号、透過波を示す透過波信号、溶融ガラスの温度を示す温度測定信号を出力する検出部と、反射波及び透過波の各強度と溶融ガラスにおける白金属類濃度との相関を溶融ガラスの温度をパラメータとするグラフとして数値テーブル化したデータベースをを検索することにより、各位置の白金属類濃度を堆積物として特定する信号処理部とを備える。【選択図】図１