Furnaces for primary production of glasses, and particularly for trie larger volume segments (containers, tableware, float), in spite of great evolution in terms of design and productivity, are still lined with fundamentally two classes of refractories. However, although both are essentially fused-cast, they are now considered commodities. AZS and aluminas fused cast, with minor reinforcements of some critical detail (like throat inlets, covers, crosswalls, sometime DH corners) are still, in fact, those materials that constitute the melting-end and working-end glass contact, and in several cases also the superstructure. This situation, now lasting since most recent half of century, is doomed to stay for several years to come, at least until a new and revolutionary smelting technology will support the evolution of a new class of refractory (or no refractories at all!), or until some improbable development of a new class of refractories will replace AZS and or aluminas.
展开▼
