JPH05330829A - Glass melting furnace - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To efficiently obtain large-sized sheet glass products having high quality by providing an accumulating chamber between a melting chamber and a working chamber and setting the base of the accumulating chamber at the same height as the top end face of the weir of the operating chamber or above. CONSTITUTION:The melting chamber 2, the accumulating chamber 4 and the working chamber 5 are disposed in this order and the weir 20 for taking out a glass melt 34 is provided at the top end of the rear part wall of the working chamber 5. Further, a glass flow rate controller 23 is provided between the accumulating chamber 4 and the working chamber 5 and the base of the accumulating chamber 4 is disposed at the same height as the top end face of the weir 20 or above. Glass raw materials are charged into the melting chamber 2 from a glass raw material supply device 6 and are heated by a gas burner 11 to form the glass melt 31. The glass melt is introduced through the stirring chamber 3 into the accumulating chamber 4 and is accumulated. The accumulated glass melt 33 is then introduced through the working chamber 5 into the molding device, by which the glass melt is molded to the glass plate. As a result the glass melt 33 to be admitted to the working chamber 5 remains in the accumulating chamber 4 and the degradation in the quality is prevented.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a glass melting furnace, and more particularly to a glass melting furnace suitable for the production of sheet glass in which melting is carried out continuously and molding is carried out intermittently.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A glass melting furnace for industrially manufacturing glass is a continuous melting furnace for melting glass raw materials continuously day and night.
It is classified as a day tank furnace that melts glass raw materials at night and performs molding during the day.

Of these, the continuous melting furnace is suitable for producing a large amount of glass products, and the equipment is relatively large. Further, since it is possible to continuously obtain stable quality, the production efficiency is high.

On the other hand, the day tank furnace is often used for small-scale production involving manual work. Although this day tank furnace has the advantage that the personnel required for molding can only work during the daytime, it does not melt continuously, so bubbles, foreign substances, striae, etc. easily occur and the product quality is stable. The yield is low.

By the way, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 54-24920 discloses a melting technique in which a glass melt is supplied from a melting tank to a working tank at a constant speed while continuously melting in a day tank furnace in which a molding operation is performed in the daytime. Has been done. According to this technology, the glass raw material is melted continuously, and the convection due to the stirring of the glass melt in the working tank has a furnace structure that does not disturb the glass melt flow in the melting tank. Quality is stable.

Further, Japanese Patent Publication No. 61-5414 discloses that
A day tank furnace capable of performing mechanical forming while keeping the level of the glass melt surface of a working tank constant is disclosed.

[0007]

However, in the technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 54-24920, continuous mechanical molding cannot be performed because the level of the glass melt surface in the working tank fluctuates. Further, in the work involving human labor, the molding work can be carried out even if the level of the glass melt surface varies, but it is difficult when mechanical work is required as in the case of molding sheet glass.

On the other hand, the technique of Japanese Patent Publication No. 61-5414 makes it possible to perform mechanical molding, but since the glass raw material is melted intermittently, the quality of the product is deteriorated due to the generation of bubbles, foreign matters, striae and the like. Becomes unstable, and high quality products cannot be produced with high yield.

As described above, in order to produce a high-quality glass product with high efficiency, it is necessary to continuously melt the glass raw material and continuously perform the molding operation by a machine. However, when the market demand is small, overproduction will occur even if it is produced by a continuous production facility, which results in a low operating rate and rather inferior production efficiency. In particular, when manufacturing large products such as flat glass, a certain amount of glass pulling up is required in the molding process, so continuous melting and continuous molding equipment will have to be large-scale equipment with a large amount of melting. Absent. Therefore, it has been difficult to efficiently manufacture high-quality glass products with a relatively small production amount.

The present invention has been made in order to solve these problems of the prior art, and provides a glass melting furnace for efficiently manufacturing a large plate glass product having a relatively small production amount. Is.

[0011]

That is, according to the present invention, a melting tank, a storage tank, and a working tank are arranged in this order, and a glass melt is taken out to an upper end surface which forms a rear wall of the working tank. In the glass melting furnace provided with the weir, the glass flow rate adjusting device is provided between the accumulation tank and the working tank, and the bottom surface of the accumulation tank is at the same height as the upper end surface of the weir or higher. And a glass melting furnace.

In the present invention, a stirring tank may be arranged between the dissolution tank and the accumulation tank.

Further, in the present invention, the glass level detecting device can be arranged on the upper end surface of the partition wall between the stirring tank and the accumulating tank, whereby the supply amount of the glass raw material can be adjusted. ..

Further, the glass level detecting device can be installed by suspending it from above in the storage tank.
The glass level detecting device in this case has a structure that can be moved in the vertical direction.

Further, it is preferable that the side wall of the partition wall between the stirring tank and the storage tank on the side of the storage tank is inclined so that the glass melt flowing down from the stirring tank can be smoothly lowered along the side wall. It will be possible.

A temperature control device can be installed near the inlet hole. This makes it possible to keep the glass melt at an appropriate temperature by operating the temperature control device during the molding operation.

[0017]

In the operation of the glass melting furnace of the present invention, the glass melt is stored in the accumulating tank with the inlet hole formed on the bottom surface of the working tank closed by the adjuster, and after a certain amount of the glass melt is accumulated. A glass molding operation is performed by opening the inlet hole and allowing the glass melt to flow into the work tank.

[0018]

EXAMPLES The present invention will be described in detail based on the following examples. FIG. 1 is a sectional view of a glass melting furnace of the present invention.

As shown in FIG. 1, the glass melting furnace 1 of the present invention comprises a melting tank 2, and a stirring tank 3, a storage tank 4 and a working tank 5 which are sequentially arranged adjacent to each other. ing.

A glass raw material supply device 6 is arranged at the upper end of the front side wall of the melting tank 2. Burners 11 are provided on the left and right side walls above the dissolution tank 2, respectively. In this case, instead of the burner 11, a plate-shaped or rod-shaped electrode pair may be arranged in the glass melt 31 to perform heating and melting by energization.

A partition wall 12 is provided between the dissolution tank 2 and the stirring tank 3.
Is provided, and a throat 13 that connects the dissolution tank 2 and the stirring tank 3 is formed near the bottom of the partition wall 12.

A stirrer 14 is suspended from above the stirring tank 3 so as to penetrate the ceiling portion. Further, a partition wall 15 is provided between the stirring tank 3 and the storage tank 4, and the glass melt 32 flows down to the storage tank 4 over the partition wall 15. Further, the side wall 16 of the partition wall 15 on the side of the storage tank 4 has an inclined structure.

A partition wall 17 is similarly provided between the storage tank 4 and the working tank 5, and the storage tank 4 is provided at the bottom of the partition wall 5.
A throat 18 for connecting the work tank 5 and the work tank 5 is formed.

An inlet hole 19 is formed on the bottom surface of the working tank 5 so as to communicate with the bottom surface of the storage tank 4 through the throat 18, and the lower end portion of an adjusting body 21, which will be described later, can be inserted into the inlet hole 19. In addition, the peripheral edge has a slanted shape. Also,
The weir 20 for taking out the glass melt 34 is formed on the upper end surface of the rear wall of the work tank 5.

An adjusting body 21 is disposed right above the inlet hole 19 so as to penetrate through the hole in the ceiling and hang down. Conditioner 2
No. 1 is required not to be corroded by the glass melt 34, but molybdenum, platinum, ceramics, platinum rhodium alloy, and the like can be appropriately used as long as they have a rod shape. Also,
The lower end of the adjusting body 21 is formed in a tapered shape and is fitted into the inlet hole 19. Further, the adjusting body 21 can be moved up and down by the elevating device 22, so that the gap with the inlet hole 19 can be easily adjusted.

The bottom surface of the storage tank 4 is arranged at substantially the same height as or higher than the upper end surface of the weir 20.
When the bottom position of the storage tank 4 is lower than the upper end surface of the weir 20 of the working tank 5, the head difference from the working tank 5 disappears when the glass melt surface is lowered to the dotted line position as shown in FIG. Moreover, the glass melt 33 does not flow from the accumulation tank 4 into the working tank 5 any further. Therefore, the glass melt 33 remaining in the accumulation tank 4 has non-uniform content components due to volatilization of the glass component from the surface and erosion of the furnace material, and is mixed with the glass melt supplied later to cause striae or striation. This is likely to cause bubbles, resulting in deterioration of quality. Therefore, in order to prevent the glass melt 33 from remaining on the bottom of the storage tank 4 when the glass melt surface is lowered, the bottom surface of the storage tank 4 is the weir 2 of the working tank 5.
It is necessary to be installed at almost the same height as the upper end surface of 0 or higher. In the upper spaces of the stirring tank 3, the accumulating tank 4 and the working tank 5, heaters 25 are provided so as to penetrate the ceiling. Also, the stirring tank 3 and the accumulation tank 4
A glass level detection device 26 is arranged on the upper end surface of the partition wall 15 so that the glass melt 32 is supplied to the storage tank 4 at a constant flow rate. Then, the glass level detecting device 26 sequentially detects the level (thickness) of the glass melt 32 flowing down over the partition wall 15, feeds back the detection data to the glass raw material supply device 6, and the partition wall 15
The supply amount of the glass raw material is adjusted so that the level (thickness) of the glass melt 32 on the upper end surface of the glass is always constant.

Further, the glass level detecting device 26 is
Instead of being arranged on the upper end surface of the partition wall 15, it may be arranged by suspending the storage tank 4 from above.
The glass level detecting device 26 'in this case can be moved in the vertical direction by a driving device (not shown). In order to detect the glass level, first, the glass level detecting device 26 'is made to coincide with the liquid level of the glass melt 33 in the storage tank 4, and the glass level detecting device 26' is moved upward from this level at a predetermined speed. Let Then, the difference between the position of the glass level detecting device 26 ′ and the liquid level of the glass melt 33 is sequentially detected, and the detected data is fed back to the glass raw material supply device 6 so that the glass melt 33 is stored in the storage tank 4 in a predetermined manner. The supply amount of the glass raw material is adjusted so that it is accumulated at the flow rate of.

Next, a method of operating the glass melting furnace of the present invention will be described. The glass raw material introduced into the surface of the glass melt 31 in the melting tank 2 by the glass raw material supply device 6 is
The glass melt 31 is heated by the flame of the burner 11,
It is guided to the stirring tank 3 via the throat 13. In the stirring tank 3, the glass melt 32 is efficiently stirred by the stirrer 14 and homogenized.

After that, the homogenized glass melt 32 passes over the partition wall 15 and smoothly flows down the slope of the side wall 16 and flows into the accumulation tank 4 without generating bubbles. At this time, the glass level detecting device 26 detects the liquid level of the glass melt 32 on the partition wall 15 to adjust the supply amount of the glass raw material. Since the lower end portion of the adjusting body 21 is fitted into the inlet hole 19 of the working tank 5 in advance, the glass melt 33 is not attached to the working tank 5.
The liquid is once accumulated in the storage tank 4 without flowing down.

After a certain amount of the glass melt 33 has accumulated in the storage tank 4, the elevating device 22 is driven to move the adjusting body 21 in the upward direction, and the lower end of the adjusting body 21 and the inlet hole 19 are slightly moved. The glass melt 33 is spouted into the working tank 5 by forming a gap. Thereafter, the glass melt 34 taken out from the weir 20 is molded into a glass plate by a molding device (not shown).

During the molding operation, it is preferable to operate the temperature control device 24 embedded in the vicinity of the throat 18 below the inlet hole 19 to keep the glass melt at a temperature suitable for the molding operation. Further, during the molding operation, the amount of glass melt required for molding per unit time is larger than the amount of melted glass melt, and therefore the glass melt 33 in the storage tank 4 decreases. Therefore, when the glass melt 33 in the storage tank 4 has decreased to a predetermined level, the glass flow rate adjusting device 23 is closed to stop the molding operation, and the operation of storing the glass melt 33 in the storage tank 4 again is repeated. As a result, it becomes possible to carry out the molding intermittently while continuously melting the glass raw material.

(Example) A melting furnace having a capacity of about 5 tons / day of glass raw material and a capacity of about 4.5 tons in a storage tank was used. Also, molding is performed by the roll-out method,
The molding dimension was 5 mm in thickness and 1200 mm in width, and the molding speed was about 100 cm / min. Continuous operation was carried out under these conditions, and a plate glass product made of soda lime glass was manufactured.

The melting of the glass raw material is started from the empty state of the glass melt in the storage tank, and the glass melt is stored in the storage tank for about 18 hours, and then the glass flow rate controller is operated to operate the work tank. Molding was carried out by flowing the glass melt into the inside. The molding time until the glass melt in the storage tank is exhausted is about 6
It was time. After that, this work was repeated. Since one cycle of operation is 24 hours, it was possible to always perform the molding operation in the daytime. For this reason, the personnel required for molding need only work during the daytime and only the personnel for melting at night.

[0034]

Industrial Applicability According to the present invention, it becomes possible to efficiently produce a large-sized glass product having a relatively small production amount with high quality. Further, since it is possible to mold a large product having a melting capacity higher than that of the melting tank, it is possible to reduce the capital investment of the melting tank.

Further, since the bottom surface of the storage tank is arranged at the same height as or higher than the upper end surface of the weir of the working tank, it should flow into the working tank when the inlet hole of the working tank is opened. No glass melt remains in the accumulation tank. Therefore, as in the conventional glass melting furnace, non-uniformity of the contained components due to volatilization of the remaining glass components and erosion of the furnace material, and striae and bubbles caused by mixing with the glass melt supplied later do not occur. In addition, the flat glass products maintain high quality.

Further, of the partition walls for partitioning the stirring tank and the accumulated storage, the side wall on the stirring tank side is inclined,
Compared to the side wall of the conventional vertical structure, the glass melt flowing down from the stirring tank to the accumulating tank can be smoothly lowered along the side wall, so that the occurrence of bubbles, striae, etc. can be suppressed. ..

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a sectional view of a glass melting furnace of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a sectional view of a storage tank and a working tank.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Glass melting furnace 2 Melting tank 3 Stirring tank 4 Storage tank 5 Working tank 18 Throat 19 Inlet hole 20 Weir 21 Regulator 22 Elevating device 26, 26 'Glass level detecting device 34 Glass melt

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A glass melting furnace in which a melting tank, an accumulation tank, and a working tank are arranged in this order, and a weir for taking out a glass melt is provided at an upper end surface which forms a rear wall of the working tank. ,
A glass characterized by comprising a glass flow rate adjusting device between the accumulation tank and the working tank, and disposing the bottom surface of the accumulation tank at the same height as or higher than the upper end surface of the weir. melting furnace. 2. The glass melting furnace according to claim 1, wherein a stirring tank is provided between the melting tank and the accumulation tank. 3. A glass level detecting device is provided on an upper end surface of a partition wall between the stirring tank and the storage tank.
2. The glass melting furnace according to 2. 4. The glass melting furnace according to claim 1, wherein a glass level detecting device suspended from above and movable in the vertical direction is provided in the storage tank. 5. The glass melting furnace according to claim 1, wherein a partition wall between the stirring tank and the storage tank, and a side wall on the storage tank side is inclined.