Dubai-based glass container manufacturer Ammat Glass chose the Sorg Group to deliver a single source for its recent furnace rebuild.
Ammat Glass Industries is a manufacturer of glass bottles and jars for the food and beverage industry and wanted to improve its hot end processes to lower energy and maintenance costs, expand capacity and enhance the quality of glass conditioning.
Nikolaus Sorg was responsible for the design and engineering of a new furnace. The furnace had to have a 140 m² melting surface and 450 tpd melting capacity for flint, green and amber glasses.
The furnace incorporated Deep Refiner technology, which increased the residence time of the glass in the furnace to improve the glass quality.
ARD regenerators were used to achieve the required regenerator height without high costs for civil work and convert the former double pass regenerators to modern, highly efficient single pass regenerators.
Two IRD doghouses were also installed to tackle the possible problems caused by batch carry-over into the regenerators. By combining the doghouses with the EME-NEND R2 chargers the system is closed, avoiding energy losses and dust around the furnace.
Nikolaus Sorg installed three 340S+ forehearths to supply three IS 12 section triple gob machines to increase production capacity, with the ability to add a fourth forehearth in the future. Boosting was also used throughout to assist with melting, thermal barrier boosting and throat boosting.
While Nikolaus Sorg led the furnace rebuild, EME improved the efficiencies and capacity of the batch house system.
After auditing the batch plant, EME worked out a concept to upgrade the facility. The main goal was to increase the plant's capacity and improve the dosing and weighing accuracies.
EME replaced pieces of equipment to enhance accuracy and installed a new high duty pan mixer. Three new EME-NEND R2 chargers with wetting screws were also supplied.
They are equipped with vibratory chutes and are designed for high cullet ratios to guarantee low wear.
The company also supplied a new cullet return system, including a single forked-link chain scraper conveyor for a capacity of 450 tpd.
The electric control system was upgraded to a more modern system controlled by the PLC.
SKS supervised the construction of the steelwork for the furnace rebuild and provided support with the refractory installation, with more than 100 workers present on-site at any one time.
SKS also guided the heating and commissioning of the furnace.
Hartmut Jaques, Head of the project department, said. “The Sorg Group transformed the hot end process with minimal disruption and will continue to provide Ammat Glass with the support it needs to continuously monitor, analyse and improve efficiency throughout the furnace lifecycle.”
