The Effect of Glass Foam on Heat Transfer in a Glass Furnace

Abstract

In high temperature environments such as a glass furnace, radiation is the dominant mode of heat transfer from the combustion process to the glass melt. It has long been thought that the presence of glass foam on the surface of the molten glass will impede the transmission of the radiant energy from the flames/superstructure to the melt. Several correlations relating foam thickness and material properties to the transmission of radiant energy have been incorporated into the Argonne National Laboratory Glass Furnace Model. Previously, a multiphase computational model to calculate foam formation had been developed and incorporated into the melt model. Prior to this work, no computational fluid dynamics code had the capability to calculate foam distribution or the effect of foam on heat transfer. This paper will present the formalism behind this modeling effort and will indicate the effect of this computed foam layer on the overall heat transfer in a glass furnace.