Numerical Optimization of Heating for High-Speed Rotating Cup by Means of Multiphysics Modeling and its Experimental Verification

K. Kyrgyzbaev[1], M. Willert-Porada[1], M. Terock[1]
[1]University of Bayreuth, Chair of Materials Processing, Bayreuth, Germany
Published in 2014

The physics of rotating cups and disks is an important research subject in many areas of engineering. The rotating cup/disk has been employed in many industrial applications such as spin-coating of phosphor on television screens or photoresist films on silicon wafer, concentrating solutions by evaporation, centrifugal atomization of metal melts, and glass flakes production. In this work the heated rotational cup was used to produce very thin glass films from molten glass. To keep the glass within the range of processable viscosity, the rotating cup is heated externally, conventionally with gas burners using methane/air mixture, or alternatively with inductive heating. This work aims to optimize the heating method of the rotating cup. For this purpose, COMSOL Multiphysics® software with the Heat Transfer and AC/DC Modules was used. The Heat Transfer Module was used to simulate the energy input into the cup from gas burner flames and the temperature distribution as a result of it. The combination of the Heat Transfer and AC/DC modules serve to simulate the inductive heating of the rotating cup.