Glass furnace with heat sensing means
AssigneeCasso Solar Corporation
InventorDouglas M. Canfield
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A glass furnace, e.g. for annealing or tempering glass, has a roller conveyor whose fused rollers rest upon stub rollers overshot by a belt which alternately overshoots and undershoots the stub rollers. A drive for the belt advantageously is controlled by a computer allowing display of the heater parameters etc. and includes a pair of motors connected to the belt with overrunning clutches and driven in opposite senses to alternately drive the belt and thereby prevent play in the movement of the latter. The heater overlying the conveyor has a matrix array of individually or collectively controllable infrared heaters.
Claims20
A furnace for the heat treatment of glass including, annealing, heat-strengthening, tempering and bending of glass which comprises:
- a housing defining an elongated furnace chamber having an inlet and an outlet;
- a roller conveyor between said inlet and said outlet and including a row of stub rollers disposed along each side of said housing flanking a path between said inlet and said outlet, a drive conveyor belt extending over and under alternate stub rollers on one side of said conveyor, and fused silica support rollers spanning said conveyor with each support roller resting upon two stub rollers overshot by said belt;
- means for driving said belt to oscillate glass articles carried by said support rollers back and forth in said housing;
- an array of infrared heaters mounted in said housing above said conveyor;
- and
- a computer for displaying parameters for the operation of said heaters in a pattern on a screen corresponding to said array.
A furnace of the heat treatment of glass which comprises:
- a housing defining an elongated furnace chamber having an inlet and an outlet;
- a roller conveyor between said inlet and said outlet including a drive conveyor belt and fused silica support rollers driven by said belt;
- means for driving said belt to oscillate glass articles carried by said support rollers back and forth in said housing, said means for driving said belt including:
- a pair of motors each coupled to said belt through a respective overrunning clutch and located at opposite ends of said furnace, said motors and overrunning clutches being effective in opposite directions for alternately driving said belt without play in opposite directions;
- an array of infrared heaters mounted in said housing above said conveyor for heating said articles as they are carried on said conveyor;
- and
- a thermal video system at said outlet including a video imager for scanning articles repeatedly for generating a thermal profile of said articles.
A furnace for the heat treatment of glass which comprises:
- a housing defining an elongated furnace chamber having an inlet and an outlet;
- a roller conveyor between said inlet and said outlet and including a drive conveyor belt and ceramic support rollers driven by said belt;
- means for driving said belt to oscillate glass articles carried by said support rollers back and forth in said housing;
- a computer provided with a random signal generator for operating said means for driving said belt in random oscillation movement;
- an array of infrared heaters mounted in said housing above said conveyor for heating said articles as they are carried on said conveyor, said infrared heaters being provided in a matrix array, said computer being provided with means for displaying parameters for the operation of said heaters;
- and
- a thermal video system at said outlet including a video imager for scanning articles repeatedly for generating a thermal profile of said articles.
In a glass furnace wherein sheets of glass are advanced beneath an array of infrared heaters from an inlet to an outlet, the improvement which comprises a video imager at said outlet having a wide-angle lens trained upon said sheets of glass, and means for repeatedly scanning said imager across said sheets in a direction transverse to a direction of advance thereof for generating an output representing a thermal profile of said sheets.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.