Method of heating glass panels for tempering and apparatus applying the method

1. A method of heating glass panels for tempering, said method comprising:

heating horizontal glass panels in a lehr by upper and lower convection blast and by upper and lower radiation heating,

reading information that represents a load of the glass panels and that is used for the control and/or regulation of heating,

controlling and/or regulating the upper radiation heating,

controlling and/or regulating at least the upper convection blast in various sections of the lehr in the way of a matrix by a profiling both in a conveying direction and in a direction lateral thereto,

dividing the upper convection blast elements in the conveying direction and in the direction lateral thereto into a plurality of segments or blocks,

individually controlling and/or regulating the blast effects of the upper convection blast elements in various sections of the lehr by providing a regulator for each said segment or block,

wherein the relative blast effects of convection blast elements successive in both the conveying direction and in the direction lateral thereto are regulated to provide a profiling both in the conveying direction and in the direction lateral thereto;

wherein profiling and individually controlling the blast effects of the upper convection blast elements minimizes glass distortion due to unified heating throughout the glass panel which thereby substantially prevents overheating of the leading and trailing edges; and

wherein individually controlling and/or regulating the blast effects of the upper convection blast elements in various sections of the lehr comprises controlling the amount and pressure of the convection air.

2. An apparatus for heating glass panels for tempering, said apparatus comprising:

a lehr for heating the glass panels to a tempering temperature,

horizontal conveyor rolls,

upper and lower convection blast elements and upper and lower radiation heating elements,

a detector capable of reading information that represents a load of the glass panels,

control devices for controlling and/or regulating the convection blast elements and radiation heating elements by means of the load representing information,

said upper and lower radiation heating elements being divided successively in a conveying direction and in a direction lateral thereto into segments which have their heating effects adapted to be controlled and/or regulated,

wherein the upper convection blast elements are divided in the conveying direction and in the direction lateral thereto into a plurality of segments or blocks which have their blast effects in various sections of the lehr adapted to be individually controlled and/or regulated in the way of a matrix, and

wherein each of the individually controlled and/or regulated segments or blocks in the upper convection blast elements is provided with a separate regulator for the regulation of relative blast effects of the successive and lateral convection blast elements,

wherein profiling and individual control of the upper convection blast elements minimizes glass distortion due to unified heating throughout the glass panel which thereby substantially prevents overheating of the leading and trailing edges of the glass panels; and

wherein the regulators provided for the upper convection blast elements are pressure regulators and wherein supply pipes to the upper convection blast elements are further provided with associated on/off valves.