Furnace Solutions conference welcomes international speakers

Delegates to this year’s SGT Training Day and Furnace Solutions Conference will hear papers from several international speakers. 

The Training Day will focus on the delivery of consistent batch to the furnace. 

Peter West, Ardagh Group will discuss potential defects and their cause and how to link back to the batch and batch plant. 

Dr Richard Hulme, Guardian Glass will review redox, managing sulphate load to the furnace and when and why to make batch changes. 

Dr Richard White of Lucideon, will show how glass and raw material defects are analysed for routine quality control and part of a post mortem programme. 

Trevor Wilson of DSF is presenting the Mellor Memorial lecture and will review the effect of Carryover on the Regenerator.

Other well-respected speakers during the Training Day, include Martyn Marshall from GTS and Matthias Haas of Sorg. 

The Training Day, as always, will be proactive event. With two panel sessions offering delegates the opportunity to ask the speakers specific questions.

A full programme of speakers has already been organised for Thursday’s Furnace Solutions Conference. Sebastian Woltz, EME, will discuss the challenges facing a batch plant supplier when a batch plant is upgraded. 

Virtual Reality is become part of our everyday life. British Glass’s Chris Sorsby with introduce delegates to a system developed for virtual machine training. 

Fives Stein’s Andy Reynolds will be speaking about refractory corrosion, prediction and prevention while electric melting. 

Conference chairman Nigel Longshaw said: “The SGT always welcomes papers from glass producers.

"This year we are happy to welcome Frank Schuurmans from Libbey, The Netherlands who will share Libbey’s experience of using Optimelt at its Leerdam plant with contributions from Praxair and Mrs Burcin Gul, from Sisecam.

"Mrs Gul will present her work modelling the Furnace.

“The glass industry takes safety very seriously and is everyone’s responsibility. With this in mind, Andrew Bowker of the HSE has been invited to review the HSE’s plan for manufacturing in 2019/2020.

“Representing the maintenance and installation sector are Hotwork’s Benjamin Koster and from the USA Dave Boothe CEO of Allstates Refractory Contractors.

"Benjamin’s paper will ask the question ‘Is it possible to repair the Regenerator without loss?’ and Dave Boothe will talk about how US installers work with the plant owner to design and operate the furnace for the long term."

Furnace Solutions will again be held a Lucideon, Stoke-on-Trent, UK on June 5th -6th.