Glass Ingot Manufacturing Oxygen Segmentation Backfire Prevention
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Solution Overview
Problem
The existing methods for manufacturing glass ingots, such as optical fiber preforms, face challenges in increasing production rate while preventing backfire in the supply system, especially when the flow rate of raw material gas is increased due to incomplete combustion and oxygen addition.
Innovation Solution
A method involving a supply system with a gasifier and burner, where oxygen is added at multiple locations in the flow direction to create a raw material mixture with controlled oxygen and organic silicon compound concentrations, preventing combustible ranges and ensuring complete combustion, thereby stabilizing the flow rate and preventing backfire.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If the flow rate of the raw material gas is increased to increase production rate, then the production rate is improved, but incomplete combustion occurs and carbon soot increases
Solution Approach 1:
The oxygen addition is segmented into multiple locations: upstream addition (at least one location before the gasifier outlet) and downstream addition (at least one location at or after the gasifier outlet). This segmentation allows oxygen to be introduced at different stages of the gas flow, ensuring complete combustion while maintaining high production rates without forming carbon soot.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention changes the parameter of oxygen concentration distribution along the flow direction by adding oxygen at multiple locations with different flow rates. The upstream addition rate is set to 1-10 slm and downstream addition rate is set to 1-20 slm, optimizing the oxygen availability for complete combustion at high production rates while preventing carbon soot formation.
2Manufacturing precision
If oxygen is added to the raw material gas to prevent carbon soot, then combustion completeness is improved, but backfire risk in the supply system increases
Solution Approach 1:
Oxygen is added in advance at upstream locations (before and at the gasifier outlet) to prepare the gas mixture for complete combustion. This preliminary oxygen addition ensures that when the gas reaches the combustion zone, sufficient oxygen is already mixed in to prevent incomplete combustion and carbon soot formation, while the controlled addition rates prevent backfire conditions.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention precisely controls the oxygen addition parameters by setting the upstream addition rate to 1-10 slm and downstream addition rate to 1-20 slm. This parameter optimization ensures the oxygen concentration is sufficient for complete combustion but not excessive to create backfire hazards, resolving the contradiction between combustion completeness and backfire prevention.
3Manufacturing precision
If multiple oxygen addition places are used to ensure complete combustion, then combustion completeness is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The oxygen supply system is segmented into upstream and downstream addition points, each with controlled addition rates. This segmentation achieves complete combustion through distributed oxygen supply while maintaining relatively simple system architecture by using only two addition locations with flow rate control, avoiding excessive system complexity.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This approach allows for increased production rates by ensuring complete combustion and preventing backfire occurrences during both operation and pauses in the supply system, enhancing the manufacturing efficiency of glass ingots.
Implementation Method 1
a burner that combusts the gasified raw material compound and generates SiO2
Data Source
Figure 1A~1B
Figure 2~3
AI summary
There is provided a method for manufacturing a glass ingot, the method including: preparing a supply system including a gasifier that gasifies a raw material compound including an organic silicon compound supplied from a supply source and a burner that combusts the gasified raw material compound and generates SiO2, adding an oxygen-containing gas to the raw material compound at a plurality of addition places including an upstream addition place located in the gasifier or on an upstream side of the gasifier and a downstream addition place located on a downstream side of the gasifier in which locations of the raw material compound in a flow direction are different in the supply system so as to form a raw material mixture, and adding the oxygen-containing gas at the upstream addition place so that a concentration of oxygen or a concentration of the raw material compound in the raw material mixture is not in a combustible range of the raw material mixture in an outlet of the gasifier.