Enhancing Tempered Glass Flatness & Optical Quality (Part 1): Equipment Guarantees
In scenarios such as building curtain walls and high-end doors and windows, the flatness and optical quality of tempered ssgla directly affect the aesthetic appearance and user experience of buildings. The image distortion and deformation problems occurring in glass of some old building curtain walls are mostly caused by warpage and wavy deformation during the tempering process. Based on industry technical accumulation, this article summarizes key points from the perspective of "equipment assurance" to help enterprises produce high-quality tempered glass products.
Equipment Assurance – Building a Solid Defense for Flatness and Optical Quality from the Source
High-quality tempered glass relies on the support of core equipment. Tempering furnaces provide equipment guarantee for the flatness and optical quality of glass through four key links: temperature control, tempering, transportation, and vibration control.
1. Precise Furnace Temperature Control: Laying the Foundation for Flatness and Optical Quality
The uniformity of the overall temperature of glass not only directly affects the flatness of glass but also is an important cause of stress spots. Improper setting of the temperature curve in the heating furnace, which leads to uneven heat absorption of glass, will directly cause glass bending deformation and even furnace explosion accidents. It should be noted that stress spots are stress traces formed whenglass cools from high temperature to low temperature during the tempering process. Even if the subsequent air blowing link is kept uniform, stress spots cannot be avoided once the glass temperature is uneven or local hot spots appear.
Zoned heating and intelligent temperature control are effective solutions, among which forced convection tempering furnaces perform particularly well. The matrix heating module and intelligent furnace temperature control system of tempering furnaces can accurately adjust the upper and lower furnace temperatures and local temperatures according to the shape and loading position of glass, ensuring that glass is heated quickly and evenly in the furnace. This fundamentally guarantees the flatness of tempered glass and avoids production risks such as wave patterns and furnace explosions.
2. Ensuring Uniformity of Tempering Air Blowing: Reducing Optical Defects
The uniformity of tempering air blowing is crucial to the quality of tempered glass, directly affecting the final flatness and optical quality of glass. Uneven air blowing will lead to inconsistent cooling rates on the upper and lower surfaces of glass, thereby causing upward or downward warpage deformation. At the same time, the unevenness of air blowing will be directly reflected in the stress distribution of glass, forming obvious stress spots and affecting the optical effect.
Tempering furnaces fully consider the temperature distribution and heat dissipation characteristics of each part of glass in the air grid. By optimizing the air path design, they effectively ensure the overall uniformity of air blowing, which can not only avoid glass warpage deformation but also reduce the generation of stress spots, taking into account both the flatness and optical quality of tempered glass.
3. Strict Control of Ceramic Roller Flatness: Avoiding Flatness Defects During Transportation
The flatness of ceramic rollers is a hidden factor affectingglass quality, which is often overlooked. Even if high-quality ceramic rollers are selected, if the installation accuracy is insufficient and height deviations occur, the high-temperature softened glass will still produce wave patterns due to uneven force during transportation. Both the furnace rollers and the air grid rollers need to meet the requirement of "absolute horizontal upper surface" – ensuring that every point of hard glass can fit when placed, and soft glass will not sag during transportation, so that the supporting force of the rollers on glass remains uniform.
This requires the processing accuracy and installation technology of the rollers themselves to meet high standards. Tempering furnaces implement strict precision standards from roller material selection to installation and commissioning, avoiding wave pattern defects caused by roller problems.
4. Furnace Body Vibration Control: Avoiding Deformation Damage
Glass will experience a critical softening state during heating. At this time, if the ceramic rollers have slight vibration, the softened glass will shake during transportation, eventually forming irreversible deformation and seriously damaging the flatness. This problem may occur in both furnace rollers and air grid rollers, so it is crucial to select equipment with excellent furnace body vibration control.
Tempering furnaces effectively reduce the vibration amplitude of the furnace body during operation through solid mechanical structure design and refined manufacturing processes, providing a stable transportation environment for glass, ensuring that the shape of glass is not disturbed by external forces, and guaranteeing the precision of finished products.
