Float glass, like tissue paper floating on the water, is a common flat glass, which is widely used in construction, automobiles, home appliances and other fields. It was born thanks to a sophisticated technique called "float craft". Next, let's take a closer look at the production process of float glass and explore the mystery behind it.
The main raw materials of glass include quartz sand, alkali metal carbonates (such as sodium carbonate), alkaline earth metal carbonates (such as calcium carbonate) and other auxiliary raw materials. These raw materials need to be mixed in a certain proportion to make a glass melt.
The mixed raw materials are fed into a glass melting furnace and subjected to a melting process at high temperatures (about 1500 degrees Celsius) to form a transparent glass liquid. During this process, gases and other impurities are removed, ensuring the transparency and purity of the glass.
The molten glass liquid flows out of the glass melting furnace and into a wide, flat metal tank. On the surface of the metal trough, the glass liquid floats on a layer of liquid tin, forming a flat surface. This step is key to the float process, as it determines the flatness and quality of the glass surface.
The glass liquid floating on the float tank gradually cools and begins to change from a liquid state to a solid state. In this process, the surface of the glass plate gradually becomes smoother, and the thickness of the plate gradually solidifies.
The cooled glass plate is cut to the desired size and then processed and shaped. This step includes trimming, polishing, and possibly further processing to ensure that the edges of the glass sheet are smooth and dimensionally accurate.
After the production is completed, the glass panes need to go through strict quality inspection. This includes checking surface flatness, dimensional accuracy, transparency, and other indicators to ensure that the glass produced meets the relevant standards and customer requirements.
The qualified glass sheets are packed through the automatic packaging line, and then shipped to the warehouse to wait for delivery. During the packaging process, care needs to be taken to avoid scratches and other damage to ensure the integrity of the product.
Overall, the float glass production process ensures that the glass is flat, transparent and of high quality through key steps such as high-temperature melting, float flattening, and cooling and curing. Float glass has become one of the mainstream processes in the global flat glass production due to its advanced production process and efficient production capacity. With the continuous development of science and technology, the production process of float glass is also constantly improving to meet the continuous improvement of glass quality in different fields.