The regenerative heating system for glass melting furnaces represents still today the most energy efficient concept. The influence of the design features such as regenerator chamber dimensions and the specifics of packing is well understood and state-of-the-art. In the context of capacity increase, the melting is usually enlarged. Due to restrictions of the building the regenerator chambers are not always enlarged in order to keep the combustion air preheat temperature unchanged. Other boundaries may limit the expansion. If the foundation does not allow increasing the heating of the checker, other solutions were considered, such as double chamber of addition of a secondary air preheating device. All these alternative solutions imply disadvantages, e.g. investment cost increase, reduction in lifetime. Sorg has faced these problems and has invented a new regenerative chamber design which allows an expansion without touching the footprint or the foundation of the regenerative chamber. The new Sorg regenerative chamber design was developed using CFD-modelilng. With these modelling results, advantages of the solution appear, such as improved flow pattern of the flue gas in the chamber. First results of the furnace operating conditions are promising and correspond with the expectations based on the modelling investigation.
