Process for bend-shaping a glass plate and an apparatus for bend-shaping the glass plate

A process for bend-shaping a glass plate by heating the glass plate to a temperature which is substantially equal to a softening temperature of the glass plate, while the glass plate is transferred on a transferring surface in a shaping furnace, to thereby bend the glass plate, by its own deadweight, into a shape corresponding substantially to the transferring surface, which comprises:

• forming the transferring surface at at least an area near an exit of the shaping furnace so as to have a upward gradient and to have a complexly bending transferring surface having a complexly curved shape with a radius of curvature in at least a direction of transferring of the glass plate;
• forming the complexly bending transferring surface at a position most downstream in the shaping furnace so as to have a radius of curvature substantially coinciding with a predetermined shape of the glass plate;
• forming a radius of curvature of the complexly bending transferring surface so as to gradually decrease from an upstream side toward a downstream side in the transferring direction;
• transferring the glass plate onto the complexly bending transferring surface;
• and
• complexly bend-shaping the glass plate into a shape substantially corresponding to the complexly bending transferring surface which comprises holding the glass plate in a floating state by a gas layer comprising a gas which is blown from the complexly bending transferring surface when the glass plate is transferred onto the complexly bending transferring surface.