Water-cooled Bubbler Tubes
Traditional types of Bubbler Tube, such as Inconel sheathed recrystallised alumina, molybdenum discilicide and so on, are all prone to one thing, corrosion. This can be addressed to a certain degree by periodic advancement.
However, as many of you will know, this takes planning and some luck to ensure trouble-free continuous bubbling.
Furthermore, these types of tube are a fixed overall length, and initial design must cater for the later pushes. If pushes are not achieved, a corroding bubbler tube can damage the furnace bottom, leading to in-campaign problems, or ultimately, a furnace glass leak.
So, consider a bubbler tube that does not corrode, will never need advancing, and will therefore never cause bottom wear.
It is already here, the FIC Water-Cooled Bubbler Tube.
Initially designed for the high-immersion requirements of float glass furnaces, FIC now provide 2 designs to cover all glass types, from the Ø40mm “Adjustable” float glass designs to the Ø25mm “Static” container/fibre glass designs.
The FIC Water Cooled Bubbler Tube is widely used throughout all glass industry sectors, becoming standard design with some customers in their new/rebuilt furnaces, and offer a unique “gun-drilled” design of the main tube, resulting in no critical welds inside the glass.
These tubes can also be installed on-the-run (hot drilled), without the need for dedicated bubbler blocks.
Thanks to the water-cooled design, they effectively make a water-cooled plug through the hole, so can be installed in furnaces even where no bubbler blocks are installed.
The Ø40mm Adjustable design, used in float furnaces, has a range of immersions between 150 and 1000mm inside the glass.
The smaller Ø25mm Static design should be installed at 100/150mm.
Further Information:
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