GB878026A - A method and apparatus for processing heat-softenable material - Google Patents

Abstract

878,026. Glass fibres. OWENS-CORNING FIBERGLAS CORPORATION. May 13, 1959 [May 29, 1958], No. 16476/59. Class 56. Fibre-forming apparatus for heat-softenable material such as glass comprises an orificed rotor rotated to project separate streams into a high-velocity gaseous attenuating blast with a burner having an apertured peripheral wall, coaxial with the rotor, arranged within the rotor to heat its peripheral wall. The form shown comprises a rotor 24 suspended from a hollow shaft 26 in bearings 27 and consisting of frusto-conical walls 36 and 48 connected by the apertured ring 28. The stream of molten glass 12 falls first into a cup-shaped distributer 110 having an apertured wall 114 and carried on a ring 124 supported by spokes 126 from the wall 48. Compressed air or steam is fed to the space 62 between plates 56 and 58 and issues from an annular slit 60 to impinge on the fibres 32 projected from the holes in the rotor. Slotted holes 76 in brackets 70, 72 permit the vertical adjustment of this assembly relatively to the rotor. A combustible gas mixture is fed from a pipe 160 through the space between concentric tubes 130, 132 within the shaft 26, to an annular chamber 142 to be burnt at holes 144. A further tube 164 is mounted inside the tube 132, the space between being closed at the bottom. Cooling water is circulated in this space through pipes 172, 170. In other embodiments, the distributor 110 is heated either by flames from additional holes in the burner chamber 142 or by a separate smaller concentric burner. Instead of the spokes 126 the rotor 24 may have a perforated bottom supporting the distributer 110.