Modeling the blow-blow forming process in glass container manufacturing : a comparison between computations and experiments

The blow-blow forming process is a widely used technique in glass container manufacturing (e.g., production of glass bottles and jars). This process typically takes few seconds and is characterized by large deformations and temperature gradients. In the work of Giannopapa (2008, "Development of a Computer Simulation Model for Blowing Glass Containers," ASME J. Manuf. Sci. Eng., 130, p. 041003), the development of a computer simulation model for glass blowing was presented and demonstrated on dummy problems with an initially uniform glass temperature. The objective of this paper is to extend and further develop the simulation model to be used for industrial purposes. To achieve this, both steps of the blow-blow forming process of glass containers are simulated and tested against real industrial problems. In this paper, a nonuniform temperature distribution is considered for the blowing of the preform, which is reconstructed from temperature data provided by the industry. The model is validated by means of several examples regarding conservation properties, behavior of the flow, and comparison of the glass thickness with experimental measurements. Furthermore, by means of these examples, the sensitivity of the glass thickness to inaccuracies in the measurement and reconstruction of the initial temperature distribution is verified