Advances In Float Glass Furnace Control

Production conditions for float glass have changed dramatically in recent decades. The times of stable pull rates, similar production thicknesses, the same or similar colours/batch compositions etc are long gone. Customers are pushing glassmakers for greater flexibility, for various thicknesses including extreme values and different glass colours. Moreover, all glass products have to be prepared on a just-in-time basis. In this article the authors, Josef Muller and Josef Chmelar, present Expert System III, a complex control system for float glass furnaces.