Glass Manufacturing: Modelling And Control Of A Gas Hearth

This paper describes a methodology for modeling and the design of optimal control laws for a Gas Hearth. A Gas Hearth is used in glass manufacturing to temper glass parts that are assembled as door windows in today's automobiles. The modeling methodology is based on input-output data and exploits a polynoimal neutral network architecture. The control objective is achieved via a hierarchial fuzzy logic based approach. The utility of these tools may potentially lead to improved Gas Hearth performance.