A real-world software project

In an industrial glass production plant, the manufacturing process can be described as follows. There is a closed vat that contains a thin layer of liquid tin. At the head of this vat, the glass paste is deposited onto the tin. After a mechanical process of extension, glass sheets of various thicknesses are obtained at the other end. This towing process, while necessary, also causes defects in the glass sheets. The reason is the tin currents created by the glass as its pulled along the layer. These currents create multiple paths for the molten glass to take as it heads toward the other end. These currents also generate different levels/patterns of thermal energy within the vat. The thermal patterns lead to heat imbalances and, thus, plastic deformations. Until now, these processes were controlled by human expertise. But to improve quality, a computer-based methodology must be implemented. The goal is to control the different mechanical and optical glass features to obtain optimal quality. The fluid-dynamic problem is debugged through simulation.