Clearing and homogenization in a sheet-glass furnace

This paper concludes a series of papers on simulating mass transfer in a glass furnace. Model data obtained have given the conditional clearing potential (CCP) and conditional homogenisation potential (CHP) which are used as criteria for evaluating the conditions in clearing and homogenisation. The CCP and CHP were calculated for the individual zones and for the furnace as a whole. They make it possible to determine how each zone is involved in clearing and homogenisation, which provides a new approach to design evaluation. An evaluation based on an experiment with a sheet glass furnace of 500 t/d capacity is presented. It is shown that the loading cycle flows are important in clearing and homogenising the liquid in the furnace. Raising the bottom temperature in the first part of the working basin from 1250 to 1300 C improved the clearing and homogenisation conditions considerably. The performance of the hot conditioning zone was also improved. 5 refs.