This paper covers the experiences of the authors based on the studies and developments made
within the company over the years, where improvements on furnace design have always been a
major issue. Developments have been achieved by driving forces like requirements for higher glass
quality, different products, and increased number of product changes, energy efficiencies, lower
investment cost and environmental challenges. Although in the glass world today there are studies
and projects to develop different radical melting techniques, like plasma melting, submerged
combustion, segmented melter and vacuum refiners being the most promising among the many, the
progress going from pilot to full scale is slow and not all the glass manufacturers are giving enough
funds to support these projects. Even though the conventional furnace technology is quite mature
and energy performances of the most energy efficient furnaces [1] and pull rates are approaching
near to the limits, there are still differences between the energy consumptions, pull rates and life of
furnaces in glass industry today. Many small steps can be taken at different areas like optimizing
furnace design criteria, refractory selection, use of additional equipments, and development of
sensors, better combustion equipment, advanced control systems.
These all add to continuous incremental developments for each project and give us opportunity to
progress with feedback from onsite applications.
