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US 4,305,747 AGranted
Multiple gob glass feeder system and method of operation
AssigneeOwens-Illinois, Inc.
InventorsRichard T. Kirkman, James E. Serman
Life of this patent
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AssigneeOwens-Illinois, Inc.
InventorsRichard T. Kirkman, James E. Serman
Estimating the term…
A molten glass feeder system and method of controlling the flow of glass through the feeder to deliver a plurality of uniform, molten glass gobs. The feeder has a heavy-walled bowl structure and a heavy-walled bottom transitional member mounted within the lower region of the feeder bowl, the transitional member having substantial height with a circular passageway at its upper region and an elongated slot passageway at its lower region, and an elongated discharge orifice member having a plurality of three or more, and preferably three to six, discharge orifices in lineal alignment with the elongated slot passageway. The feeder permits the simultaneous formation and delivery, when coupled with suitable glass shearing mechanism, of more uniform plural glass gobs having similar weight, temperature and heat characteristics to multiple-cavity gob-fed glass forming machines.
In a glass feeder having a bowl structure adapted to contain molten glass, a single plunger mounted vertically within said bowl structure for vertical reciprocation, a single cylindrical tube mounted within said bowl structure surrounding said plunger, said tube and plunger adapted to control delivery of the amount of molten glass from said feeder, and a set of shear blades mounted below said feeder for simultaneously separating a plurality of streams of molten glass into molten glass gobs, the improvement comprising a bottom orifice discharge member having a plurality of three or more discharge orifices, a heavy-walled tubular transitional member mounted within a lower region of said feeder bowl structure and above said bottom orifice discharge member, said transitional member having substantial vertical height with a circular passageway configuration at its upper region and an elongated slot passage-way configuration at its lower region in lineal alignment with the major axis of said elongated slot for delivering a plurality of uniform molten glass gobs from said plurality of three or more discharge orifices.
In a method of delivering multiple molten glass gobs of improved uniformity from a glass feeder system adapted to contain a mass of molten glass, the feeder system including an insulated, thick-walled bowl structure, a single vertically-reciprocatable plunger mounted by a single cylindrical tube, a tubular heavy-walled transitional member mounted in the lower region of said bowl structure, and an elongated bottom discharge orifice member mounted at the lower region of said transitional member having a plurality of discharge orifices, the method including the steps of delivering a mass of molten glass into the bowl structure, locally heating the molten glass within the bowl structure to ensure its thermal uniformity throughout the mass, delivering the molten glass through said tubular transitional member from a circular inlet passageway to an elongated slot outlet passageway and then through the plurality of discharge orifices of said elongated bottom discharge orifice member, the flow rate of the molten glass being primarily controlled by vertical movement of the single, vertically-reciprocatable plunger surrounded by the single cylindrical tube, locally heating the exterior vertical surfaces of said transitional member to control heat transfer through its verying wall thickness and flow resistance of the molten glass therewithin, and periodically shearing the molten glass emitting from the plurality of discharge orifices into multiple molten glass gobs having uniform weight, shape and temperature characteristics.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.