Read our latest article in Glass Worldwide where Neil Simpson discusses the benefits of in-furnace thermal imagers to gain an improved level of understanding of glass furnace operation.
AMETEK Land’s five year development of an in-furnace
Near Infrared Borescope (NIR-B) has taken the glass industry to another level of understanding of glass furnace operation. With over 324,000 continuously measured optical temperatures in over 50 end-fired and cross-fired regenerative furnaces, through case studies, it is possible to demonstrate the potential to use this data to further develop furnace controls to meet the needs of Industry 4.0 and optimisation of the furnace process. A picture, or in this case, a single thermal image, really is worth a thousand words and can convey complex and sometimes multiple ideas.
Current standard practice is for operators to take manual infrared pyrometer temperature measurements, often using AMETEK Land’s
Cyclops and the frequency is really company and site-specific but at least once per shift. Whenever anything goes wrong on a furnace, one of the first things that operators should do is take an optical temperature reading at a predetermined point and time. Depending on the reading, furnace operating parameters may be changed, or alternative areas investigated.
Read the full article in Glass Worldwide March / April 2020