Starting with speciality glass compositions and then expanding to more common glasses such as soda-lime, oxy-fuel firing has been, over the past few years, the fastest growing technology in the glass industry. Numerous papers report the conversion of conventinally-fired furnaces, or the building of newly designed furnaces. The benefits of this technology in terms of pollution abatement, pull increase & capital cost savings are well documented in the literature. For alkali based glasses, many manufacturers have reported problems regarding degradation ofsuperstructure refractories, particularly silica. Typically affected are the areas where silica is commonly used, such as crowns and breastwalls. The wear rate of silica is accelerated and rat-holing is the most common corrosion mechanism. There is a clear need for a better understanding of these corrosion phenomena.
