Simulation of Multi-Phase Glass-Melt Flows in a Glass Melter

A typical glass furnace consists of a combustion space and a melter. The intense heat, generated from the combustion of fuel and air/oxygen in the combustion space, is transferred mainly by radiation to the melter where the melt sand and cullet (scrap glass) are melted, creating molten glass. The melter flow is a complex multi-phase flow including solid batches of sand/cullet and molten glass. Proper modeling of the flow patterns of the solid batch and liquid glass is a key to determining the glass quality and furnace efficiency. A multi-phase CFD code has been developed to simulate glass melter flow. It uses an Eulerian approach for both the solid batch and the liquid glass-melt flows. The mass, momentum, and energy conservation equations of the batch flow are used to solve for local batch particle number density, velocity, and temperature. In a similar manner, the conservation equations of mass, momentum, and energy of the glass-melt flow are used to solve for local liquid molten glass pressure, velocity, and temperature. The solid batch is melted on the top by the heat from the combustion space and from below by heat from the glass-melt flow. The heat transfer rate from the combustion space is calculated from a radiation model calculation while the heat transfer rate from the glass-melt flow to the solid batch is calculated from a model based on local particle number density and glass-melt temperature. Energy and mass are balanced between the batch and the glass-melt. Batch coverage is determined from local particle number density and velocity. A commercial-scale glass melter has been simulated at different operating/design conditions.