Thesis Defense - Hazar Şişik (MSME)

Hazar Şişik – M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering

Asst. Prof. Altuğ Melik Başol – Advisor

Date: 04.08.2025

Time: 10:30 – 11:00

Location: AB1 245

“NUMERICAL ANALYSIS OF AN INDUSTRIAL SCALE CONTINUOUS CONTAINER GLASS ANNEALING FURNACE”

Asst. Prof. Altuğ Melik Başol – Özyeğin University

 Prof. M. Pınar Mengüç – Özyeğin University

Prof. Fırat Oğuz Edis – Istanbul Technical University

Abstract:

Annealing is a critical heat treatment process in container glass manufacturing, used to relieve residual stresses caused by rapid cooling during forming. This process takes place in continuous annealing furnaces, where glass is gradually heated to the annealing temperature and then cooled at a carefully controlled rate to avoid stress-induced defects. Given the transient nature of heat transfer in the furnace, precise adjustment of heating and cooling rates are essential. Numerical simulations offer a powerful tool to determine these parameters based on the geometry and thermal properties of the glass. This study presents a numerical investigation of the annealing process applied to a real container glass geometry inside a continuous annealing furnace. Furnace operating conditions were derived from actual measurements and applied as boundary conditions in the model. The simulation employs two coupled solvers: one resolves heat transfer in the furnace domain, while the other tracks the thermal behavior of moving glass objects on the conveyor belt. Radiative heat transfer is modeled using a Monte Carlo ray tracing-based surface-to-surface approach, capturing detailed radiation effects among 10,000 glass objects. Convective heat transfer to glass is modeled using a porosity-based method. Simulation results were validated against real furnace zone temperatures and glass exit temperatures. Finally, the effect of two different conveyor speeds on the temperature distribution of glass was analyzed, and the implications on process quality were discussed.

Bio:

Hazar Şişik completed his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering +at Özyegin University in 2022. He subsequently began his M.Sc. studies in Mechanical Engineering (with thesis) under the supervision of Dr. Altuğ Melik Başol in the same instution. His research focuses on the numerical analysis of industrial furnaces, with particular emphasis on the development of a conjugate solver aimed at optimizing the operating parameters of annealing furnaces. He had the opportunity to present the outcomes of his work at the International Conference on Computational Heat and Mass Transfer (ICCHMT) in 2025.