Patent ID: 9249041
Filing Date: 2016-02-02
CPC Classification: C03B,Y02P

Claim Text:
1. A furnace for melting batch materials, comprising: a zone to introduce solid batch materials, upstream in a direction of flow of molten materials; one or more submerged burners, each submerged burner producing convection currents in a glass melt of the molten materials; and an overhead burner, such that at least one of the submerged burners is associated with the overhead burner, wherein the overhead burner is directly vertically above and aligned with the associated submerged burner, the overhead burner providing a flame that touches a surface of the glass melt at a point where a bubble from the associated submerged burner emerges, and heat from both the flame provided by the overhead burner and a flame provided by the associated submerged burner is concentrated at one point on the surface of the glass melt, and wherein the one or more submerged burners forming a dam, the dam created by the convection currents produced by the one or more submerged burners sending the solid batch materials toward the upstream of the furnace thereby preventing the solid batch materials from passing over any of the submerged burners toward a downstream end of the furnace.