Industrial opportunities of controlled melt flow during glass melting, part 1: Melt flow evaluation

Glass melting is still highly-energy consuming which bothers many technologists dealing with the issue of how to compete with other materials. Glass melting is a complex process consisting of several sub-processes which are ordered in a series or in parallel with their kinetics and ordering determine the effectiveness of the entire melting process. The most important sub-processes during production are sand dissolving and bubble removing (fining), both being performed mostly successively in a commercial melting space and consuming a lot of energy. In the continuous melting process, the route of the melt flow through the melting space is another factor determining the melting efficiency. The new quantity, utilization of the melting space has been introduced recently which quantitatively evaluates the character of the melt flow with respect to both sub-processes. Using space utilization, a simple rectangular melting space with a controlled melt flow was examined which performs both homogenization processes in parallel, substantially increasing the melting performance and reducing the energy consumption. As a theoretical tool, the commercial mathematical model has been applied (Glass Model) which calculates using the experimental data of both processes. The derivation of utilization and some summarizing results are presented in this article. The further current aim resulting from the results in this part will be to deliver an overview of the melting techniques and subsequently discuss possibilities for both implementing the module in real technology and improving the melt flow in the contemporary commercial melting furnace.