The Drying Out and Warming Up of Tank Furnaces

JSGT 1923 V07 T238-T240

This operation, which at first sight appears quite a simple and ordinary matter, is really of great importance and deserves to have more attention paid to it than is usually the case in the majority of glass factories. The object of this preliminary "warming up" of a tank furnace is really threefold. (a) To drive off any moisture that may have collected in the flues, and to dry out thoroughly any new material of construction. (b) To 'raise the temperature of all the brickwork slowly and regularly, so that the expansion which this increase in temperature entails may be gradual and the effects controlled. (c) To raise the temperature of all the brickwork with which the gas comes in contact to such a degree that when the gas finally arrives at the outlet of the ports into the tank it is sufficiently hot to ignite immediately without risk of going out or causing an explosion.

C. Saxton