Mathematical and Experimental Modeling of the Circulation Patterns in Glass Melts

Abstract

Natural convection currents in a rectangular two-dimensional enclosure representative of the longitudinal section of an industrial glass-melting furnace have been established by both model experiments and numerical calculation. For the latter a finite-difference method has been employed to solve the time-dependent coupled flow and energy equations. The highly generalized mathematical model makes allowance for buoyancy, temperature-dependent viscosity, and diffusive radiation. Generalized boundary conditions are employed to permit specification of any combination of temperature, flux, or mixed thermal boundary conditions. Representative temperature and flow contour maps obtained from the calculations are shown to agree well with experimental results obtained with a 1/20 scale model in which glycerine was employed as the modeling fluid.