Experimental method for determination of a suitable temperature range for glasses used in precision molding

摘要

Viscosity of glass is one of its important technological properties. It is usually adopted as a mark in controlling and evaluating the workability of glass. The viscous features in a glass forming process are strongly relevant to the temperature distribution. Appropriate procedure setting and controlling of temperature is an essential issue for precision glass molding. But the characteristic viscosity of glass is difficult to be observed directly in a practical lens molding. It's not convenient to set up the molding conditions caused by the differences between theoretical data and actual system. The purpose of this experimental study is intended to provide a simple and reliable method for determination of suitable temperature intervals of glasses used in the precision molding fabrication which meets the requirements of process tolerances in the industrial productions. The average glass deforming force and center thickness of molded lens are taken as the two conditions of determination principle for molding temperature ranges. The average force should not less than the minimum value of measurement accuracy and the lens thickness should reach the design target in these temperature ranges. These two conditions are easy to be measured and fit for application in the engineering. The molding temperature ranges of several kinds of glass were obtained in this project. One of them is Schott optical glass P-LASF51 which is selected for evaluating and validating this method. Its suitable molding temperature range is from 590 to 614 . The results of molding experiments demonstrate the method is effective and feasible.