Novel Heraeus Infra-Red Solution Speeds Up Cutting of Laminated Glass
A novel infra-red heating system from Heraeus Noblelight has allowed Glass Systems of Swansea to reduce the cycle time required to cut sheets of laminated glass by almost a half. This has given the Press Glass Group company the capability to significantly increase output to meet increasing demand for its products.
Laminated glass construction causes a problem in manufacture, as this type of glass is more difficult to cut to size than conventional glass because of the sandwiched foil. This problem is solved by applying heat along the cutting line to soften the PVB. Unfortunately, the softening process of the interlayer for easy separation was creating something of a bottleneck at Glass Systems. Heraeus found a solution by providing two 6kW, fast response medium wave emitters. Each emitter was produced with a small 10mm cold end of the non-connection side and these were then butted together, with the electric connections at either side of the cutting machine. This allowed the power to be increased, with no noticeable effect from the “cold butted” section in the middle of the assembly.
As Lucasz Matlingiewicz, engineering director at Glass Systems, comments, “This novel solution has allowed us to reduce the cutting cycle time from 55 seconds to less than 30 seconds. In fact, we are so pleased with the results that the Heraeus modification has now been incorporated in many of the other glass-cutting machines at our other sites across the UK.”
