Product Code: ICA11_P118

Improvement of Engery Efficiency for Glass Tube Fusing
Authors:
Hendrik Gebauer, Laser Zentrum Hannover; Hannover
Lars Richter, Laser Zentrum Hannover; Hannover
Uwe Stute, Laser Zentrum Hannover; Hannover Germany
Ludger Overmeyer, Laser Zentrum Hannover; Hannover Germany
Presented at ICALEO 2011

Fusing of glass tubes for solar thermal collectors is dominated by the flame based heating and melting technology. The low energy transfer efficiency of the flame in conjunction with long process times, leads to massive gas consumption. Consequently, the use of high amount of energy for fusing raises the interest to substitute this process by a more efficient one. With the aid of CO2-laser radiation very efficient energy transfer can be obtained and an intelligent process management may reduce the energy consumption of the heating process.
We present laser fusing of glass tubes for solar collectors with regard to obtained quality and the accompanying energy monitoring. Using this monitoring the single process steps have been analyzed and optimized with regard to the required energy. The possible savings using a CO2-laser in this fusing process are illustrated and a detailed comparison between burner and laser technology is presented.