ES359040A1 - A method to produce glass. (Machine-translation by Google Translate, not legally binding) - Google Patents

Abstract

Flat glass is produced by melting glass-forming materials in a furnace and delivering the molten glass (at, e.g., 2050 F.) to the surface of a molten metal bath (e.g. Sn) contained in a refractory chamber 16 to form a pool 40 of molten glass at the upstream end of the chamber, applying a mechanical propellant force, e.g. by contacting the glass with rotating rollers 41 having knurled surfaces, to push the glass downstream before the glass has attained equilibrium thickness, allowing the glass to attain equilibrium thickness and cooling to attain a semi-rigid state. Preferably, thereafter the glass is engaged above and below by edge rollers 51, (53, 54), which rotate at the same speed as rollers 41, heated to a plastic state and stretched by rollers 32, and cooled to give a selfsupporting ribbon of thickness less than the equilibrium thickness. The flow out zone and the heating and cooling section are separated by a radiation gate (30) having a sheath of steel and cooling liquid flowing through its upper part. The edge rollers 51, (53, 54) prevent glass being pulled by rollers 32 from the pool 40, thus preventing the setting up of stresses therein. The chamber 16 is preferably lined with carbonaceous material as in Specification 1,120,730. Preferably, glass is pushed downstream from pool 40 at the same rate that molten glass is supplied from the furnace. Rollers 32 and 54 may be of stainless steel, rollers 54 being surrounded by a graphite sleeve, and the tank atmosphere may be (vol. per cent) CO 4 H 2 4 N 2 92.