This paper describes a methodology for the optimisation of glass furnace design. This methodology includes the use of a comprehensive mathematical model of the glass furnace for the prediction of main thermal phenomena occurring in an industrial glass furnace. The integrated model is based on the solution of conservation for mass, momentum, energy and combustion related chemical species, and comprises sub-models of combustion chamber, batch melting and glass tank. The model simulates the complete glass furnace in an integrated fashion. At the interfaces heat fluxes and temperatures between the combusiton space, the batch blanket and the molten glass were calculated by a coupling procedure. The proposed methodology constitutes a technological contribution towards a new generation of systems able to assist the optimisation of glass furnace design.
