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    Glass Manufacturing Process

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    Nur Aulia S
    The glass manufacturing process involves 6 stages: 1) Melting and refining raw materials like silica sand at 1500 degrees Celsius. 2) Pouring the molten glass onto a bed of molten tin to form a flat ribbon. 3) Optional coating is applied to impart properties like reflectance. 4) Annealing to gradually cool the glass and remove internal stresses. 5) Inspection checks for flaws before 6) Cutting the glass to customer specifications.

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    Glass Manufacturing Process

    Uploaded by

    Nur Aulia S
    365 views2 pages
    The glass manufacturing process involves 6 stages: 1) Melting and refining raw materials like silica sand at 1500 degrees Celsius. 2) Pouring the molten glass onto a bed of molten tin to form a flat ribbon. 3) Optional coating is applied to impart properties like reflectance. 4) Annealing to gradually cool the glass and remove internal stresses. 5) Inspection checks for flaws before 6) Cutting the glass to customer specifications.

    Original Description:

    How to make glass

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    The glass manufacturing process involves 6 stages: 1) Melting and refining raw materials like silica sand at 1500 degrees Celsius. 2) Pouring the molten glass onto a bed of molten tin to form a flat ribbon. 3) Optional coating is applied to impart properties like reflectance. 4) Annealing to gradually cool the glass and remove internal stresses. 5) Inspection checks for flaws before 6) Cutting the glass to customer specifications.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    365 views2 pages

    Glass Manufacturing Process

    Uploaded by

    Nur Aulia S
    The glass manufacturing process involves 6 stages: 1) Melting and refining raw materials like silica sand at 1500 degrees Celsius. 2) Pouring the molten glass onto a bed of molten tin to form a flat ribbon. 3) Optional coating is applied to impart properties like reflectance. 4) Annealing to gradually cool the glass and remove internal stresses. 5) Inspection checks for flaws before 6) Cutting the glass to customer specifications.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 2

    Glass Manufacturing Process

    The glass float glass as we know - is manufactured by the PPG process. This process was invented by Sir Alistair
    Pilkington in 1952 and is the most popular and widely used process in manufacturing architectural glass in the world
    today.

    It consists of the following steps:

    Stage 1- Melting & Refining:


    Fine grained ingredients closely controlled for quality, are mixed to make a batch, which flows into the furnace, which
    is heated up to 1500 degree Celsius.

    The raw materials that go into the manufacturing of clear float glass are:

    SiO2 Silica Sand


    Na2O Sodium Oxide from Soda Ash
    CaO Calcium oxide from Limestone / Dolomite
    MgO Dolomite
    Al2O3 Feldspar
    The above raw materials primarily mixed in batch helps to make clear glass. If certain metal oxides are mixed to this
    batch they impart colors to the glass giving it a body tint.

    For e.g.

    NiO & CoO to give grey tinted glasses (Oxides of Nickel & Cobalt)
    SeO to give Bronze tinted glasses (oxide of Selenium)
    Fe2O3 To give Green tinted glasses (oxides of iron which at times is also present as impurity in Silica Sand)
    CoO To give blue tinted glass (oxides of Cobalt)
    Apart from the above basic raw material, broken glass aka cullet, is added to the mixture to the tune of nearly 25% ~
    30% which acts primarily as flux. The flux in a batch helps in reducing the melting point of the batch thus reducing
    the energy consumed to carry out the process.

    Stage 2 - Float Bath:


    Glass from the furnace gently flows over the refractory spout on to the mirror-like surface of molten tin, starting at
    1100 deg Celsius and leaving the float bath as solid ribbon at 600 deg Celsius.

    Stage 3 - Coating (for making reflective glasses):


    Coatings that make profound changes in optical properties can be applied by advanced high temperature technology
    to the cooling ribbon of glass. Online Chemical Vapour Deposition (CVD) is the most significant advance in the float
    process since it was invented. CVD can be used to lay down a variety of coatings, a few microns thick, for reflect
    visible and infra-red radiance for instance. Multiple coatings can be deposited in the few seconds available as the glass
    flows beneath the coater (e.g. Sunergy)

    Stage 4 - Annealing:
    Despite the tranquillity with which the glass is formed, considerable stresses are developed in the ribbon as the glass
    cools. The glass is made to move through the annealing lehr where such internal stresses are removed, as the glass is
    cooled gradually, to make the glass more prone to cutting.

    Stage 5 - Inspection:
    To ensure the highest quality inspection takes place at every stage. Occasionally a bubble that is not removed during
    refining, a sand grain that refuses to melt or a tremor in the tin puts ripples in the glass ribbon. Automated online
    inspection does two things. It reveals process faults upstream that can be corrected. And it enables computers
    downstream to steer round the flaws. Inspection technology now allows 100 million inspections per second to be made
    across the ribbon, locating flaws the unaided eye would be unable to see.

    Stage 6 - Cutting to Order:


    Diamond steels trim off selvedge stressed edges- and cut ribbon to size dictated by the computer. Glass is finally
    sold only in square meters

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