Large Glass Glob Cooling
Project Sponsor: Corning Asahi Video
Team Members: Jeffrey Beitinger, Lindsay Kellogg, Ryan Rebholz, Matthew Straup
Course: ME414W, December 2000, Prof. Damian Rose

Corning Asahi Video Products manufactures television glass components for production of CRT television bulbs by a variety of television set manufactures.  With the emphasis on larger and flatter picture tubes, glass gobs have grown substantially over the last year.  The gobs now are approximately twice that they used to be and because of this a new system needs to be designed.  The main trouble area we are working with is developing a new system to break up the large gobs (75 – 160 lbs.) before they are cooled.  When the smaller gobs are dropped in hoppers of water, they are thermally shocked and break up on their own making it easy to reuse the glass.  The larger gobs are not thermally shocked enough to break up….this is where we come in.

*  Specifications

          Corning Asahi Video gave us nine primary specifications to work with:

 

                        ¨ System must cool glass gobs between 75 and 160 pounds.

                        ¨ System must cool to sustain a line rate of 2 cuts per minute.

                        ¨  System must be able to cool a hopper of hot glass in 4 hours or less.

                        ¨  System must be able to run continuously for at least 2 hours.

                        ¨  System must be able to withstand temperatures in excess of 1000 degrees C.

                        ¨  System must have a bypass capability without shutting down the gobbing process.

                        ¨  System must meet physical requirements for space without adding to current facility.

                        ¨  System must be maintainable, sustainable, and environmentally feasible.

                  ¨  Documentation must be provided to CAV standards

 

 

*  Design Concepts

        We came up with six preliminary ideas:

                 

1.      Using a high-pressure liquid or gas jet to cut the glass gobs in half or thirds lengthwise so when they enter the water they will  shatter.

2.      Install a set of mangle rollers at the end of the chute to squeeze the gob into a longer thinner shape and increasing the surface area.

3.      Place pneumatically activated shears at a point on the chute to slice the gobs into thirds as it passes by.

4.      Inject liquid nitrogen into the core of the glass gob using a high temperature syringe type apparatus causing failure from the inside out.

5.      Use a super cooled probe made of highly thermal conductive material to spear the gob.  This would remove heat from the core and by simultaneously putting it in water hopefully would shatter it.

6.      Use a mechanical press to push each gob through a grate.  This would break up the gobs into small enough pieces so that when they fell through into the water, they would shatter.