Glass manufacturing
Wadi Glass uses the following manufacturing process:
1- Melting
The basic three raw materials (quartz sand, limestone, soda ash) with the addition of some oxides which act as catalysts to melt the glass, are made into precise batches and are routed to be melted in a glass furnace, i.e. tank furnace, with standing high temperatures of up to 1600 degrees, to produce molten glass. A charger continuously feeds the batch into the furnace.
2- Shaping or Forming
At the end of the furnace, the glass stream is distributed to the different fore hearths to the respective production line. Plungers in the feeder system shape the glass stream, which is cut into individual gobs by a mechanical shear. The gob distributor routes the gobs to the blank molds.
The forming technique to be used by Wadi Glass is the Blow and Blow process used for bottles and the Wide-mouth Press and Blow process used for wide mouth containers mainly used for the food industry.
Blow and blow process:
Formation of the container in an inverted position using compressed air to form first the mouth and then blow out the required shape. The container is inverted to an up right position in the blow mold compressed air is used to produce the final shape. The container then is conveyed for annealing. Blow and blow diagram
Wide-mouth press and blow process:
The gob of molten glass is delivered to the blank mold and the metal plunger forms the mouth and required container as it presses upwards. It is inverted and the final blow takes place and conveyed for annealing. Press and blow diagram
3-Annealing:
The hot glass containers undergo controlled cooling to relieve inherent stresses. Annealing involves two operations:
(1) Holding the glass container above a certain critical temperature long enough to reduce internal strain by plastic flow to less then a predetermined maximum.
(2) Cooling the container to room temperature slowly enough to hold the strain below this maximum.
4-Inspection:
The glass containers are channeled individually through inspection stations and are checked for dimensional accuracy, body and neck quality. Inspection can be manual, semi-automatic or automatic to optimize quality.
5-Packing:
After the inspection stations, the glass containers are put on pallets and protected with shrink-wrap ensuring safe delivery to its customers
