Glass Furnace with Bottom Material Feed
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 screw 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 screw conveyor such that batch material from the screw 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.
Claims20
A glass furnace comprising:
- a furnace chamber for containing glass melt;
- a screw conveyor for receiving glass batch material and feeding such material to the furnace chamber;
- and
- a dam wall disposed with respect to the screw conveyor such that batch material from the screw conveyor must flow upward over the dam wall before entering the furnace chamber.
A glass furnace comprising:
- a furnace chamber for containing glass melt;
- a plurality of feed chutes to introduce batch material into the furnace chamber below the melt level;
- a plurality of heaters that receive batch material from the feed chutes to raise the temperature of the batch material before it is introduced into the glass melt;
- and
- a dam wall establishing a well in the furnace chamber to separate the heaters from the glass melt in the furnace.
A glass furnace that includes:
- a furnace chamber for containing a pool of glass melt and including a wall;
- a batch feed hopper adjacent to the wall of the furnace chamber to supply batch material under gravity;
- a screw conveyor proximate a bottom of the hopper to receive the batch material;
- a dam wall at the end of the screw conveyor forming a well;
- and,
- a heater between the dam wall and the wall of the furnace chamber to heat the batch material in the well before flowing over the dam wall into the melt pool.
A glass furnace that includes:
- a furnace chamber including a side wall and a bottom wall, the furnace chamber containing a pool of glass melt having a melt level;
- a batch feed hopper adjacent to the side wall of the furnace chamber to supply batch material under gravity to a bottom of the hopper;
- a feed opening in the side wall of the furnace chamber for feeding batch material from the bottom of the hopper to the pool of glass melt below the melt level;
- a screw conveyor proximate the bottom wall of the hopper to feed the batch material from the bottom of the hopper through the feed opening and into the furnace chamber;
- and,
- submerged heaters proximate the bottom wall of the furnace chamber to heat the pool of glass melt in the furnace chamber, whereby the submerged heaters melt the batch material that is fed into the furnace chamber by the screw conveyor.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.