Automation Of Glass Manufacturing

Automa­tion in glass man­u­fac­tur­ing is a step by step process that is has been made more effi­cient due to the incor­po­ra­tion of glass han­dling robots.

Mix­ing

The first step in glass han­dling automa­tion is to trans­fer raw mate­ri­als to the batch house and store them in silos. Then the mate­ri­als are weight­ed and sent to the mix­ers which are locat­ed above the fur­nace. From here the raw mate­ri­als are trans­port­ed to a con­vey­or belt by a mate­r­i­al han­dling robot, such as a Motoman UP20‑6, to the fur­nace for the ​“hot end” of the process.

Heat­ing

The heat­ing step in glass man­u­fac­tur­ing is often referred to the ​“hot end.” The raw mate­ri­als are turned into molten glass by being fed into the fur­nace at a slow con­sis­tent rate. The fur­nace is heat­ed to an aver­age tem­per­a­ture of 2,300 degrees. Once melt­ed, the molten glass flows through the refin­er and is then cooled to the manufacturer’s desired temperature.

Using a glass pro­duc­tion robot, such as the UP20‑6 men­tioned above, helps pro­tect work­ers from injuries dur­ing this step of glass han­dling automa­tion. Work­ing around high tem­per­a­tures can be very haz­ardous to work­ers as there can be a risk of burns or inhal­ing tox­ic fumes. Robots are able to han­dle these high heat con­di­tions, sav­ing man­u­fac­tur­ers time and money.

Form­ing

Once the molten glass has cooled a bit it then flows through the bot­tom of the feed­er. The amount of molten glass allowed through the feed­er is con­trolled by a ceram­ic plunger that cuts the glass flow with shears as it leaves the feed­er. Shear­ing cre­ates spe­cif­ic amounts of glass called gobs that is formed into indi­vid­ual con­tain­ers. Gobs are dropped into molds where 1 of 3 pos­si­ble process­es will take place to form the desired shape of the glass. These process­es are the Blow & Blow, the Wide Mouth Press & Blow, or the Nar­row Neck Press & Blow. Once the glass is released from the molds the bot­tles then cross the cool­ing plate where the tem­per­a­ture drops to 900 degrees. The glass is sprayed with hot and cold sprays to relieve stress. This spray­ing appli­ca­tion can be per­formed by a robot such as the Fanuc M‑710iC/​70T.

Pack­ag­ing

The final step is to pack­age the bot­tles so that they are ready to ship to var­i­ous dis­trib­u­tors. The pack­ag­ing process may be done in bulk or in indi­vid­ual car­tons. Pack­ag­ing robots, such as the Fanuc M‑420iA, are used to place the bot­tles in their indi­vid­ual car­tons. Then a pal­letiz­ing robot, like the Motoman UP165, places the pack­ages on pal­lets so that they may be moved out to ship.

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