Reduction of energy consumption in a glass furnace by applying the pre-melting of raw materials in melting process

摘要

In order to reduce energy consumption in glass processing plant, a novel system has been proposed. In the system pellets of mixture of the fine raw materials of glass are pre-melted in high-temperature gaseous atmosphere before the materials are put into the melt pool so as to shorten the process time required to obtain glass of uniform quality and without bubbles in it. In this paper, melting behavior of the pellet of glass materials and the flow and temperature fields in the glass melt pool in the furnace were numerically examined and effects of the pre-melting of materials were discussed. The results suggested that the CO{sub}2 gas generated due to one of the chemical reactions in the pellet of raw materials would be easily released from the pellet's surface during the heating since Bi number of the pellets is quite low in gaseous atmosphere and thus the pellet is not covered with the glass melt when the chemical reaction occurs. It was also shown that melt flow in the furnace is affected by in high-temperature pre-melted materials. This suggests that the geometry and structure of the glass furnace should be optimized for the novel system independently of the conventional glass processing.