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US 10,118,852 B2Granted
Glass furnace
AssigneeOwens-Brockway Glass Container Inc.
InventorsZhongming Wang, Scott Weil, Tilak Gullinkala, Udaya Vempati, Shivakumar S. Kadur
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A glass furnace includes a furnace chamber for containing glass melt and a conveyor for receiving glass batch material and feeding the glass batch material to the furnace chamber. A dam wall is disposed with respect to the conveyor such that batch material from the conveyor must flow upward over the dam wall before entering the furnace chamber. The top of the dam wall may be below the level of the melt pool in the furnace chamber.
Claims28
A glass furnace comprising:
- a melt chamber configured to contain a glass melt;
- a conveyor configured to receive glass batch material and feed such material to the melt chamber;
- a dam wall disposed upstream with respect to the melt chamber and downstream with respect to the conveyor, wherein a top of the dam wall is below a melt level in the melt chamber, and wherein the dam wall forms a well upstream of the melt chamber;
- a heater positioned in the well and configured to heat glass batch material prior to flow over the dam wall,
- wherein the conveyor is disposed at a position below a top surface of the glass melt within the melt chamber, and wherein the conveyor is configured to drive the raw batch materials into a lower portion of the well for partial melting by the heater prior to entering the melt chamber, and wherein the conveyor and the dam wall are configured to flow the batch materials upward over the dam wall before the batch materials enter the melt chamber.
2 more elements
A glass furnace that includes:
- a melt chamber configured to contain a pool of glass melt having a melt level;
- a feed chamber proximate a bottom portion of the melt chamber, the feed chamber having an outlet below the melt level;
- a conveyor configured to receive batch material and to convey the batch material through the feed chamber toward the outlet of the feed chamber, the conveyor being disposed at least partially within the feed chamber;
- a dam wall disposed upstream with respect to the melt chamber and downstream of the conveyor, wherein a top of the dam wall is below a melt level in the melt chamber, and wherein the dam wall forms a well upstream of the melt chamber;
- and
- a heater positioned in the well proximate the outlet of the feed chamber and configured to heat glass batch material prior to flow over the dam wall and that at least partially melts the batch material,
- wherein the conveyor is disposed at a position below a top surface of the glass melt within the melt chamber and wherein the conveyor is configured to the raw batch materials into a lower portion of the well for partial melting by the heater prior to entering the melt chamber, and wherein the conveyor and the dam wall are configured to flow the batch materials upward over the dam wall before the batch materials enter the melt chamber.
4 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.