Evaporative cooling of continuously drawn glass fibers by water sprays

This paper examines the effect of the water sprays commonly used to cool freshly drawn glass fibers. A model has been developed using a Karman-Pohlhausen treatment of the velocity and thermal boundary layers and accounting for the evaporation of an entrained water spray. Solutions of the model equations have been calculated, and the effect of changing various process parameters is studied. Variations in Sauter mean diameter, spray density, and spray placement along the fiber are considered, as well as the effect of fiber diameter and drawing speed. Fiber temperature profiles for different values of the process variables are presented. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.