Electric melting and refining furnace for glass - where batch flows vertically downwards through melting, refining and conditioning zones

摘要

Glass batch is distributed across the surface of molten glass in a vertical tank furnace. Batch flows vertically downwards in the tank, so it travels successively through a melting zone(a), a refining zone(b), and a conditioning zone(c). Zone(c) has a bottom outlet for the conditioned glass. Furnace has a temp. gradient which increases vertically upwards, due to a network of vertical heating electrodes located only in the top part of the furnace and along the furnace walls; and due to controlled cooling of the base of the tank by modules The horizontal cross-section of the tank is pref. round, rectangular, or polygonal; and the furnace walls are pref. provided with thermal insulation reducing heat losses. The glass flows downwards through zones(a,b,c) with controlled temps.