Glass furnace hot repairs are preventive maintenance interventions made on a glass furnace (in a hot state) to restore it to acceptable operating conditions.
Hot repairs are carried out in conformity to Health and Safety Regulations; guided by procedures and work instructions that prevent injuries (burns) and other heat related conditions to the personnel. Popular glass furnace hot repair activities include the following:
Ceramic Welding
Furnace Endoscopy and Thermal Imaging Audits
Furnace Draining, Cooldown, Heat-Up and Expansion Joint Sealing
Overcoating
Port Paving Cleaning
Checker Sulphate Cleaning
Target Wall Repairs and Checker Removal
Crown Castable Overcoat
Port Cap Castable Overcoat
Furnace Drilling
Timeous hot furnace repairs result in a number of direct and indirect benefits. This article will briefly discuss some of these benefits.
MAINTENANCE COSTS
Refractory materials tend to represent a significant portion of a glass furnace’s expenses. Glass furnace hot repairs result in the extension of each refractory lining’s life; thereby significantly reducing the lifetime refractory material costs. Despite the fact that these repairs necessitate some level of interruptions in production operations; the duration of such outages tends to be short as the need for lengthy furnace cooling down procedures is eliminated within the context of such interventions.
FUEL COSTS
Glass furnace hot repairs maintain the furnace at acceptable levels of performance; thereby contributing towards keeping the furnace’s fuel efficiency at optimal levels. Ultimately this avoids any additional fuel costs that would be incurred due to lowered levels of performance.
PRODUCT QUALITY
Glass furnace hot repairs maintain the furnace at acceptable levels of performance; thereby contributing towards system’s ability to consistently melt the raw materials to the required levels, ultimately maintaining highly consistent levels of system throughputs and as well as product quality.