Cam tavlama fırınlarında soğutma bölgesinin sayısal olarak incelenmesi

Annealing, a crucial heat treatment process in the glass manufacturing industry, aims to alleviate the residual thermal stresses induced during the rapid cooling of glass following the forming stage. In the production of container glass, continuous annealing furnaces are employed for this process, consisting of distinct zones tailored to meet specific process requirements. The initial segment of the furnace, the upstream heating zone, is responsible for raising the glassware's temperature to the annealing point. After the heating zone, multiple cooling zones gradually lower the temperature of the glass objects under precise control. To enhance convective cooling rates and ensure uniform air temperatures within the furnace, circulation fans are typically installed in the cooling zones. This study focuses on numerically investigating the influence of circulation airflow rates, namely 0.6(m^3)s, 0.8(m^3)s, and 1(m^3)s, on the cooling performance within an industrial-scale continuous container glass annealing furnace. Two separate solvers are employed in an iterative approach. One solver addresses transient heat conduction within the glass bottles, utilizing radiative and convective heat fluxes as boundary conditions. The other solver is focused on solving the steady convection pattern inside the furnace. Results showed that increasing the circulation fan flow rate enhances the convective heat transfer inside the zone and increases the cooling rate of moving glass bottles. Moreover, increasing the fan flow rate also resulted in a more uniform cooling behavior in glass indicating a reduction in the residual thermal stress levels.