Numerical and experimental study of glass in the blow and blow forming process for the prediction of thickness distributions in glass perfume containers

Author

Biosca Mecías, Adrià 

Abstract

The design of the blank mold cavity is a critical step in the development of new perfume containers as it defines the glass thickness distribution of the manufactured bottles. Despite that, mold cavity design is still based on empirical knowledge and trial and error. Hence, several manufacturing tests may be required, which increase time to market and involve significant downtimes. Ramon Clemente is a glass manufacturing company that wants to bridge the gap between industrial experience in glassmaking and scientific and engineering knowledge present in numerical simulations. The goal is to implement a numerical model to describe the thermo-mechanical behavior of glass during the blow and blow forming process and predict the glass thickness distribution of the manufactured bottles. Therefore, this thesis focuses on a numerical and experimental study of the production of glass perfume containers. Then, thermal analyses were performed using an infrared thermal camera under industrial manufacturing conditions. These included experimental measurements of the glass gob, parison and final container throughout the forming process. In addition, forming operations and glass properties defined a framework to numerically model the blow and blow forming process using ANSYS Polyflow. Subsequently, two numerical models were implemented. First, a gob drop test to provide a description of the glass flow over time to validate the characterized viscosity and the Newtonian non-isothermal flow predicted by the simulations. Later, a numerical model of the blow and blow forming process to predict the glass thickness distribution of the manufactured containers. Numerical results were correlated with experimental glass temperatures and thickness distributions of sectioned containers. Results lead to gain a better understanding of the thermo-mechanical behavior of glass inside the mold cavities. Moreover, simulations successfully predicted the thickness distribution after the container forming process, showing the influence of the blank mold cavity and process conditions in both axisymmetric and three-dimensional models. Validation of the 3D model has strong implications for Ramon Clemente, as it paves the way for numerically predicting the glass thicknesses of complex perfume containers instead of being limited to axisymmetric bottles. Therefore, allowing to develop new glass containers faster and of better quality.

TDX

 

Director

Borrós Gómez, Salvador 
García Granada, Andrés-Amador  

Departament

IQS SE - Enginyeria Industrial

Date of defense

2020-10-01