GB1067240A - Method and apparatus for feeding glass making materials to a glass melting tank furnace - Google Patents

Abstract

<PICT:1067240/C1/1> A glass melting tank furnace includes means for depositing glass making materials as a transverse strip on the surface of a bath of molten glass and means to compact the strip against a previously deposited and compacted strip and to move it over the bath away from the depositing means. Raw granular batch material from hopper 36 mounted on wheeled framework 35, passes to power driven compartmented feed roll 37 to discharge and form a transverse layer on the surface L of the molten glass G in a doghouse. The feed supply is controlled by gauge plate 45. Simultaneously cullet from hopper 50, also on a wheeled framework, falls into a tiltable pan 55 oscillated by motor 58 through rod 59, to control the cullet feed rate, and from thence via plate 56 discharges to form a transverse cullet layer beneath the raw granular batch layer in the doghouse. These layers so built up, are intermittently pushed forward by water-cooled pusher 65 driven by a reversible electric motor (135, Fig. 5, see Division H2) through a transmission gearing, to compact the deposited transverse strip layer against the previously deposited and compacted transverse strip layer, so forming a blanket with a series of transverse ridges on the surface of the molten glass, which blanket moves, as a whole, towards the melting zone of the furnace. A circuit (Fig. 6, not shown) incorporating a timing device for the control of the intermittent reciprocation of the pusher 65 is disclosed. Air pipes (182 and 183, Fig. 1) are provided in the furnace proper to break up the formed blanket of charged batch material.