Horizontal non-contact slumping of flat glass

This paper continues the work of M. Akilian and A. Husseini on developing a noncontact glass slumping/shaping process. The shift from vertical slumping to horizontal slumping is implemented and various technologies required for the horizontal slumping process are developed. In the horizontal slumping process, a thin sheet of glass is placed in between two horizontal ceramic air bearings with a bearing to glass gap of about 50 pm, and the assembly is heated up to 600*C. The glass is unconstrained in the horizontal plane and must be positioned without any solid contact. Specifically, the technologies developed are: an optical distance sensor for positioning of the glass, glass position control via air bearing fluid shear force and tilt of device, and device mechanisms for operation in 600*C. Glass was slumped horizontally with bearing-to-glass gaps of >50 [mu]m, 36±2.5 pm, and 30.5±2.5 [mu]m. The best flatness achieved was 6.7/3.6+0.5 [mu]m for front/back of the glass sheet, with a gap of 36+2.5 [mu]pm. It was discovered that 600*C is hotter than necessary and that 550*C is still too hot for optimal slumping conditions. In addition, an important shift is made from using an oven, which heats the entire device, to using in-line pipe heaters, which supply heated air. This allows for much quicker heating and cooling times, which decreases slumping time to less than 30 minutes (10 minutes heating, 5 minutes slumping, 10 minutes cooling).

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2013

Author dc:creator

• Sung, Edward, S.M. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Mark Schattenburg.

• Mechanical Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/81717

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/81717