Follow the journey from mineral charge to molten stone.
Try a browser with WebGL enabled. You can still explore the process using the zone list and controls.
This is a generic, coke-fired cupola for stone wool production. Explore the structure, follow the material paths, and adjust two inputs to see a simplified response.
Basalt and other mineral raw materials are charged with coke. The blend may include limestone, dolomite and recycled briquettes. Blast air enters through tuyeres; hot gases rise while the charge descends. Mineral melt leaves the cupola and feeds a spinner that forms fibres. The four wheels shown here are a schematic downstream context.
Drag to orbit and scroll or pinch to zoom. Select a zone label or use the zone arrows. Scrub the cycle or select a stage to jump to it. The Melt out stage illustrates downstream fibre formation. Thermal view uses relative colours, not a measured temperature field.
Geometry, particle speed, cycle timing and temperature responses are illustrative. The staged sequence makes a continuous melting process easier to explore; in operation, charging, melting and melt discharge overlap during continuous production. This is not a heat balance, CFD simulation, equipment specification or operating procedure. Blast preheating, off-gas treatment, water cooling, metallic by-product removal and downstream binder application are outside this model.
Geometry is parameterised separately from the process model. A future version can use blueprints, a CAD-derived mesh, actual tuyere and spout positions, and validated operating data.
European Commission: Manufacture of Glass BREF, stone wool ↗ROCKWOOL: stone wool production process ↗ISOVER: stone wool raw materials ↗
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