Ceramics-Silikáty 57 (4) 275-284 (2013)

GLASS MELTING PHENOMENA, THEIR ORDERING AND MELTING SPACE UTILISATION

Four aspects of effective glass melting have been defined – namely the fast kinetics of partial melting phenomena, a consideration of the melting phenomena ordering, high utilisation of the melting space, and effective utilisation of the supplied energy. The relations were defined for the specific melting performance and specific energy consumption of the glass melting process which involve the four mentioned aspects of the process and indicate the potentials of effective melting. The quantity “space utilisation” has been treated in more detail as an aspect not considered in practice till this time. The space utilisation was quantitatively defined and its values have been determined for the industrial melting facility by mathematical modelling. The definitions of the specific melting performance and specific energy consumption have been used for assessment of the potential impact of a controlled melt flow and high space utilisation on the melting process efficiency on the industrial scale. The results have shown that even the partial control of the melt flow, leading to the partial increase of the space utilisation, may considerably increase the melting performance, whereas a decrease of the specific energy consumption was determined to be between 10 - 15 %.

Keywords: Glass melting, Space utilization, Melt flow, Phenomena ordering, Melting performance