Float Glass Production Process

Introduction

Glass has been manufactured by various methods, but float glass production process is being used widely by many manufacturers nowadays. In this process the molten glass is poured onto the molten tin. The molten glass is spread onto the surface of the metal and produces a high quality glass sheet, which is later heat polished.

Production Process
Science behind the process:
Oil spread out in a bath of water spreads onto surface of water, similarly when molten glass is poured onto the bath of clean molten tin it spreads across the surface, and rest is taken care by the gravity, surface tension which makes the glass approximately flat and parallel.

The molten glass does not spread out indefinitely over the surface of the molten tin. Despite the influence of gravity, it is restrained by surface tension effects between the glass and the tin. The resulting equilibrium between the gravity and the surface tensions defines the equilibrium thickness of the molten glass.