Furnace Design
The following activities for new investment and cold repair projects of production groups are undertaken:
- Strong expertise on glass furnace design and refractory materials
- Drafting of manufacturing and application drawings for furnace refractory structure
- Refractory materials and glass conditioning systems selection, technical support for procurement processes
- Inspection of refractories prior to shipment
- Determination of design criteria for furnace control systems, electrical boosting and bubbling systems, equipment procurement, installation and commissioning
- Follow up and control of on-site assembly
In addition, the following activities are conducted periodically or in line with the requests from production groups:
- Regular furnace performance evaluations for audit studies
- Support for post-mortem studies in the furnaces
- Technical support for troubleshooting activities for furnace and forehearth related glass defects
- Investigation of new technologies and alternative suppliers
- Model based predictive control implementation to optimize furnace operation
Cfd Modelling And Simulation
The in-house developed glass furnace CFD model has been used as a powerful tool for furnace design. With the help of CFD modelling; studies for furnace capacity increase, glass quality improvement, production and energy efficiency improvement have been conducted:
- Application of developments in glass production to new furnace design
- Setting the criteria for innovative glass melting technologies
- Improving the operating conditions of glass melting furnaces
- Assessment of the quality of final products
In addition, modelling software available on the market are used to optimize product and production processes. Simulation studies on topics below have been conducted:
- Automotive glass forming and heating system design
- Forming and tempering of tableware glass products
- Thermal behavior and deformation of molds in container glass production
- Detailed gas flow and heat transfer analysis in regenerators to enhance energy recovery efficiency
- Optimum cooling at critical areas of furnace
Batch and Mechanical Systems
Main activities are comprised of engineering, design criteria determination, partial or whole project design and purchasing of steel structure and mechanical equipment for furnace, tin bath and batch plant for new and cold repair investments.
Scope of activities include batch and cullet systems, furnace steel structure and mechanical systems, float tin bath steel structure and annealing lehrs.
In addition, support for operational trouble-shoot activities, improvement and modernization studies are performed as well as new technologies, systems and equipment are closely followed and evaluated for future implementation.
Energy and Environmental Studies
The following activities are conducted by energy and environmental studies group:
- Energy efficiency audits and energy benchmarking of furnaces
- Benchmarking of combustion equipment and systems, determining design criteria, equipment selection
- Thermal screening of glass furnace refractory structure with IR camera
- Participation of international energy projects
- Alternative fuels and heat recovery systems expertise
- Emission and immission measurements by mobile environmental lab in compliance with international standards
- Technical expertise to support waste management activities
- Furnace Heat-Ups and Maintenance Services
The following activities are conducted:
- Furnace refractory and steelwork assembly follow up and control
- Furnace Heat-up
- Endoscopic observations of furnace, identification of critical areas, periodical reporting
- Hot repair support
- Support for trouble-shooting in furnaces
- Controlled cooling of furnaces
