Journal of the American Ceramic Society, Vol.96, No.6, 1891-1898, 2013
Determination of Temperature-Dependent Heat Conductivity and Thermal Diffusivity of Waste Glass Melter Feed
The cold cap is a layer of reacting glass batch floating on the surface of melt in an all-electric continuous glass melter. The heat needed for the conversion of the melter feed to molten glass must be transferred to and through the cold cap. Since the heat flux into the cold cap influences the rate of melting, the heat conductivity is a key property of the reacting feed. We designed an experimental setup consisting of a large cylindrical crucible with an assembly of thermocouples (TC) that monitors the evolution of the temperature field while the crucible is heated at a constant rate. Then we used two methods to calculate the heat conductivity and thermal diffusivity of the reacting feed: the approximation of the temperature field by polynomial functions and the finite-volume method (FVM) coupled with least-squares analysis. Up to 680 degrees C, the heat conductivity of the reacting melter feed was represented by a linear function of temperature.