Patent GB-840863-A (GB)
Title: Process and apparatus for the manufacture of fibres, particularly glass fibres
IPC: C03B37/04
Filed: 1958-02-18
Abstract: 840,863. Glass fibre manufacture. MANUFACTURES DES GLACES ET PRODUITS CHIMIQUES DE SAINT-GOBAIN, CHAUNY & CIREY S. A., DES. Feb. 18, 1958 [March 12, 1957], No. 5206 /58. Class 56. In a process for making glass fibres by projecting molten material, contained in a hollow centifuging body having one or more rows of projection apertures in its peripheral wall or band, through the apertures by centrifugal force so that it emerges in the form of streamlets, a gaseous fluid current of high velocity and relatively low temperature acts on the emitted streamlets opposite their projection apertures and in a direction substantially perpendicular to their emission direction, the low temperature being less than the temperature imparted to the thermoplastic material for drawing it into fibres. As shown a crown member 4, concentric with the centrifuging body 1, provided with a continuous slit 4a supplies a gaseous fluid at a temperature below that necessary for drawing the fibres formed from the streamlets emerging from the projection apertures 3. This gaseous fluid may be for instance air, steam, or combustion gases, the temperature of which has been suitably lowered. To keep the band 2 at a suitable temperature, it may be heated by induction from a coil 5, through which passes a high frequency current. In a modification shown in Fig. 2, in order to avoid cooling, by the gas current issuing from the crown 4, a gas current of higher temperature obtained by means of flames or hot gases emerging from a crown 6 with a slit 6a and arranged concentrically within the crown 4 is used to exert a limited heating effect on the band and possibly on the immediate neighbourhood of the band. In a modification, Fig. 3 (not shown), annular plates concentric with body 1 are fixed respectively to the top part and to the bottom part of the band 2 to maintain the streamlets, when they emerge from the projection apertures 3, at a sufficiently high temperature. In a modification shown in Fig. 4, the slit 4a of the crown 4, supplying the gaseous fluid at a relatively low temperature, debouches into a channel 11 of increasing section in the direction of gas flow and then a zone 8 of constant section around the body 1 from at least the first row of projection apertures 3 to the last row. The conduit then comprises a channel 13 of increasing section in the direction of gas flow. This modification may be further modified by the addition of two annular plates as in the modification according to Fig. 3. In another modification shown in Fig. 6, a gaseous fluid at high temperature emerges from the slit 6a and is canalised by walls 14 and 15, the wall 14 being inclined in order to direct the fluid on to the band 2 and finally into channels 8 and 13. In another modification shown in Fig. 7, the gas current produced by a ring-shaped combustion chamber 16 with a slit 16a is mixed with air arriving laterally at 17, to lower its temperature and passes into a canal 20 of decreasing section and then into a canal 21 of increasing section followed by a canal 22 of constant section which covers the whole height of the band 2 as well as a part of the conduit situated upsteam. A canal 24 of increasing section is provided at the outlet from the canal 22. Specification 840,862 is referred to.