After the glass is produced from its raw materials, these molten glasses are shaped into required shapes to produce required glass products. In here, we explain the general glass shaping processes avaliable in glass industry.
Casting Operations Of Molten Glass: Glass is sufficiently melted to cast inside molds to obtain special glasswares. Casting o glasses are generally done for the casting of big telescope lenses and kinds of applications like this. Slow solidification is very important to prevent internal crackings of glass products.
Spinning Operations: This is a very basic process that is used in the production of glass cathode tubes and television tubes. There is a spinning metal mold that a piece of molten glass is put inside it. With the rotation, molten glass take the shape of spinning metal mold. This is a similar process with centrifugal casting of metals.
Rolling Operations Of Glass: Rolling operations are applied to molten glass to obtain flat shapes such as window glasses. Bunch of rollers give the flat shape to glass which is came from melting furnaces. Required annealing and additional processes are applied after rolling of glass to obtain flat, parallel and smooth glasses.
Centrifugal Spraying Of Molten Glass: A special bowl which has very small holes around it is rotated. And molten glass is flown on this bowl. With the centrifugal force, moltem glass is forced to flow from these holes. So, very thin glass wools are obtained. These glass wools are generally used in both thermal insulation and sound insulation.
Floating Process Of Molten Glass: In floating process of glasses also, flat shapes are obtained. But the smoothness of produced flat glasses are superior over the rolled glasses. And there is no need for application of additional process to obtain required smoothness. Molten metal is directly came from melting furnace, and it is floated on liquid tin. When the uniform thickness of glass is obtained, glass is drawn to annealing section.
Pressing Operation: Pressing processes are the most common process that are applied to molten glasses to obtain customer products such as kitchenwares, automobile headlights etc. Very basic pressing mechanisms are used to obtain required shapes from molten glasses.
Glass Tube Production With Drawing Operations: This is a veyr special process that molten glass is supplied onto an rotating mandrel which blows air from the edge. With the air flow, hollow shape is given to the fluxing molten glass. Size of mandrel and the rate of air flow determines the thickness and size of tube. Labratory glassware, flourescents and products like them are produced.
Glass Filament Production: Glass filaments are generally used in fiber-glass reinforced composites. These glass fibers are produced with special plates which has hundreds and thousands of holes on them. These plates are produced from platinum alloy. Molten glass is drawn on this plate. When molten metal is passed through these holes, glass filaments are obtained. These filaments are rolled on spools. But before rolling, they are generally coated with some additives for protection.
Blowing: Glass blowing is very old technique to obtain glass containers and shapes like that. But in today’s technology, blowing is applied with fully automated techniques. There is two types of glass blowing operations;
Glass is one of the most important material for our civilization. There are lots of engineersi labor forces and scientists that are working for the development of glass production processes.
This article includes very basic information about the general glass forming processes that are generally used in industry. You can determine the general production process of a glassware product with this article.
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