Wide Application of horizontalflat washing machine used in glass deep processing industry

1. Definition of glass deep-process industry.

With the fast development of building industry and glass manufacturing, glass deep processing industry has also developed extensively, which means that using the forming flat glass (float glass, general guideline glass, horizontal drawing glass and rolled glass) as basic raw materials and using different processing technology, according to requirements, manufactures specific glass products featuring of different functions.
These functions include
(1). Increase vitreous strength and enhance its safety. The typical glass products including tempered glass, laminated glass, silk-add glass and coated glass.
(2). Changing the geometry of flat glass, such as heat bent glass, auto glass and groove glass.
(3).Glass surface treatment
Note: surface treatment consists of two aspects: one is to rich the glass surface, which refers to make different patterns and designs on the glass surface by using physical or chemical methods; the other one is to do some coated treatment on glass surface and the products derived from it including float glass, stained glass, sand-blasted glass, etched glass, color glazed glass, carved glass and coated glass.
(4).Increase insulation features and the typical glass products including heat-reflective glass, Low-e glass, insulating glass, vacuum glass, multi-layer glass and heat-absorbing glass.

2. Equipments applied in glass industry

Equipments include float glass production lines, case law glass production line, steel furnace, homogenizing furnace, laminated glass line, insulating glass line, coating glass line, screen printing equipment, milling machine, glass washing machine, glass polishing machine, glass loading table, cutting machine, drilling machine and glass engraving machine.

3. Concept of glass washing machine

As the special equipment applied in glass-deep industry, glass washing machine is used for cleaning and drying original glass sheets. According to cleaning method, it can be distinguished vertical glass washer(vertical glass washing machine) and horizontal glass washer(flat glass washing machine). Because of the limitation of glass size and vertical structural, at present vertical glass washing machine is major used for producing I.G. unit with aluminum spacer. The horizontal glass washing machine, although it takes more area, has been applied in more extensive fields because of its more high efficiency and excellent structure.


4. Wide application of flat glass washing machine

Now we majorly introduce the wide range of application of horizontal glass washing machine in glass deep-process industry.
(1). Cleaning application for ordinary glass
The cleaning process of flat glass washer for ordinary glass is simple relatively. The tanks can be feed with industrial water without heating. Because the surface of glass has not been made any treatment, there is no special requirement for the brushes on the glass washer. At the same time, there is also no too restrictive requirement for water PH. About the air knife design, we can adopt normal structural but must ensure the wind power can be adjusted. When we clean the glass with thickness 3—19 mm, the design of distance between rollers can not be considered making too large. Generally speaking, the factory could use middle or small glass washing machine to do the cleaning and drying job for raw piece of ordinary glass.

(2).Cleaning application for warm-edge insulating glass
For the production of warm edge insulating glass (with flexible spacer, such as duralite or duraseal or superspacer), the cleaning requirements to the raw glass sheets are higher. Operators should ensure the good cleaning and drying for surface of glass in order to conveniently make the spacer bonding for the following steps, meanwhile, avoiding surface scratch. For most developed countries and areas in the world, in order to make the entire warm edge insulating glass, more and more factories adopt horizontal glass washing machine. This kind cleaning equipment is composed of feeding section, washing section, drying section and output section and in the washing section, there are three tanks which feature of cycling heating water with the suitable PH (6-9), meanwhile, the machine must be installed with high quality rubber transfer rollers to avoid glass scratching. In addition, engineers should design special air knife structure applied in drying section of the glass washer, such as side-by-side multiple wind blade design, and guarantee the enough wind power and make it adjustable, as the best drying result, the air blower can blow hot air. All these considerations can achieve the excellent drying job: completely cleaning up or blowing off water in multi-angle and much area. Please also note that in order to match the total production line, the speed of glass washer also need to be regulated.
Remark: the production process of flexible spacer I.G. normally contains below machines: flat glass washing machine, flexible spacer assembly table, glass assembly table, heated roller press machine and glass convey table. Total production line has two-side or single side establishment. Glass is conveyed to glass washer in the horizontal state then starts its first process until to finish hot-press sealing job in heated roller machine. Around the production line, small assistant devices, such as gas filling machine, duraseal spool stand are also equipped.


(3).Cleaning application for coated glass
Before washing coating glass by the horizontal washing machine, we should take into account the choice of brush and water quality. In cleaning process, the coated glass sheets should not stop under brushes to avoid damaging the film. As the hardness of every brush may be different, we should also check the film after cleaning to confirm that if the brush do some damage on the surface of glass or not. When we clean the MSVD low-e coated glass, the best way is not to use recycled water, because these films are very sensitive to the PH value, if using recycled water, operators should monitor water PH value constantly.
Using demineralization or deionization water to spray coated glass to guarantee no residue when drying glass. However, the technology of this process may increase water corrosive, so we should test the sample water and confirm no adverse reactions occur. In addition, before large-scale production, we also should do some trial production to determine that if the water can work well in the system.
In real operation, solve the above problems, both horizontal glass washing machine and vertical glass washing machine can well complete cleaning and drying job to coated glass

(4). Cleaning application for other glass (such as tempered glass, laminated glass and safety glass)
As above glass features of large size, thickness and weight, factories often use horizontal glass washing machine to finish their cleaning job. For the vertical glass washer, because of its structural limitations, it can not suitable for washing large size glass. By means of choosing appropriate soft brushes and using different air knife structure, the horizontal glass washer can meet the washing and drying demand for above glass.

5.Prospect of horizontal glass washing machine

In the last decade, building glass has been developed in the direction of insulating, energy-saving, safety and decoration, so the horizontal glass washing machines are also improved with the same direction. Particularly after the solar glass, conductive glass, foam glass and other special glass are widely put into market, the factoies put forward higher cleaning requirements to above special glass. The specific performance is that we are not only upgrade or improve the equipment structure, but also make the specific difference on brush manufacturing, selection of conveying rubber rollers, especially enable the studies of cleaning system and air knife structure meet different special requirements. We can expect, along with social development in future, more and more special glasses will come out and the horizontal glass washing machine would also be manufactured cooperatively with them and this industry will become more specific, detailed and standardized.

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