Pilkington Brothers P.l.c.

George A Dickinson

William Jackson Rhodes

Flat glass is manufactured by the float process and is attenuated to a thickness in the range 1.5 mm to 5 mm. In an attenuation zone of the bath the viscosity of the glass is controlled to regulate attenuation of the float ribbon to a desired width and thickness and transverse barriers are provided on the floor of the tank structure, containing the molten metal along which the ribbon is advanced, to constrain to forward flow the molten metal entrained beneath the ribbon. Upstream counterflow from the cooler end of the tank structure is alongside the ribbon and replenishes the molten metal beneath the ribbon between that transverse barrier and an upstream similar transverse barrier.

Method and apparatus for manufacturing flat glass on a molten metal bath

In a glass melting tank, a plurality of stirrers are spaced apart across the tank and arranged to extract heat from the forward flowing glass so as to achieve a differential extraction of heat from the glass which flows along a return path towards the inlet end after stirring, and that glass which continues along a forward path to the outlet end of the tank.

Glass manufacture

In flat glass manufacture on a molten metal bath, there is forward flow of molten metal entrained by accelerating glass over an upstream return flow of cooler molten metal which is received in a deepened region of the bath. Upstream molten metal flows are drawn from that deepened region to replenish the molten metal entrained by the accelerating ribbon.

Method and apparatus for manufacturing flat glass on molten metal

In a glass melting tank a water cooled barrier extends horizontally across the forward flow of molten glass to control the forward flow towards the working end and a plurality of stirrers, rotatable in phase with each, are arranged side-by-side across the flow path adjacent the barrier.

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St. Helens, United Kingdom

George A Dickinson