第1自然段

Glass, which has been made since the time of the Mesopotamians and Egyptians, is little more than a mixture of sand, soda ash and lime. When heated to about 1500 degrees Celsius (℃) this becomes a molten mass that hardens when slowly cooled. The first successful method for making clear, flat glass involved spinning. This method was very effective as the glass had not touched any surfaces between being soft and becoming hard, so it stayed perfectly unblemished, with a ‘fire finish’. However, the process took a long time and was labour intensive.

第1自然段：
玻璃自古美索不达米亚和埃及时代就开始制作，它只是由沙子、碱和石灰的混合物。当加热到约1500摄氏度时，玻璃变为熔融物质，慢慢冷却后硬化。最早成功制造清晰平整玻璃的方法是旋转法。这种方法非常有效，因为玻璃在变软到变硬的过程中没有接触到任何表面，所以保持完美无瑕，有着“火光光泽”。然而，这个过程耗时长且需要大量劳动力。

第2自然段

Nevertheless, demand for flat glass was very high and glassmakers across the world were looking for a method of making it continuously. The first continuous ribbon process involved squeezing molten glass through two hot rollers, similar to an old mangle. This allowed glass of virtually any thickness to be made non-stop, but the rollers would leave both sides of the glass marked, and these would then need to be ground and polished. This part of the process rubbed away around 20 per cent of the glass, and the machines were very expensive.

第2自然段：
尽管如此，对平整玻璃的需求非常大，全世界的玻璃制造商都在寻找一种连续制造的方法。最早的连续带状工艺是通过将熔融玻璃挤压通过两个热辊子的方法实现的，类似于旧式洗衣板。这使得可以不间断地制造几乎任意厚度的玻璃，但辊子会在玻璃两侧留下痕迹，这些痕迹需要研磨和抛光。这个过程会磨掉约20%的玻璃，而且这些机器非常昂贵。

第3自然段

The float process for making flat glass was invented by Alistair Pilkington. This process allows the manufacture of clear, tinted and coated glass for buildings, and clear and tinted glass for vehicles. This article is from Laokaoya website. Pilkington had been experimenting with improving the melting process, and in 1952 he had the idea of using a bed of molten metal to form the flat glass, eliminating altogether the need for rollers within the float bath. The metal had to melt at a temperature less than the hardening point of glass (about 600~C), but could not boil at a temperature below the temperature of the molten glass (about 1500~C). The best metal for the job was tin.

第3自然段：
平板玻璃的浮法工艺是由艾利斯泰尔·皮尔金顿发明的。这种工艺可以制造透明、着色和涂层建筑玻璃，以及透明和着色的车辆玻璃。皮尔金顿一直在尝试改进熔化过程，在1952年他想到使用一层熔化金属床来形成平整玻璃，完全消除了在浸铸槽内使用辊子的需要。金属必须在玻璃的硬化点以下温度熔化（约为600摄氏度），但不能在熔融玻璃的温度（约为1500摄氏度）以下沸腾。最适合这项工作的金属是锡。

第4自然段

The rest of the concept relied on gravity, which guaranteed that the surface of the molten metal was perfectly flat and horizontal. Consequently, when pouring molten glass onto the molten tin, the underside of the glass would also be perfectly flat. If the glass were kept hot enough, it would flow over the molten tin until the top surface was also flat, horizontal and perfectly parallel to the bottom surface. Once the glass cooled to 604~C or less it was too hard to mark and could be transported out of the cooling zone by rollers. The glass settled to a thickness of six millimetres because of surface tension interactions between the glass and the tin. By fortunate coincidence, 60 per cent of the flat glass market at that time was for six-millimetre glass.

第4自然段：
其余的概念依赖于重力，这保证了熔化金属的表面是完全平坦和水平的。因此，在将熔融玻璃倒入熔融锡上时，玻璃的底面也会是完全平坦的。如果保持玻璃足够热，它会流过熔融锡，直到顶部表面也变得平坦、水平且与底部表面完全平行。一旦玻璃冷却到604摄氏度或更低，它就太硬而无法留下痕迹，并且可以通过辊子将其从冷却区域转运出去。由于玻璃与锡之间的表面张力作用，玻璃形成了6毫米的厚度。恰逢那个时候市场上约有60%的平板玻璃需求是6毫米厚度的。

第5自然段

Pilkington built a pilot plant in 1953 and by 1955 he had convinced his company to build a full-scale plant. However, it took 14 months of non-stop production, costing the company ￡100, 000 a month, before the plant produced any usable glass. Furthermore, once they succeeded in making marketable flat glass, the machine was turned off for a service to prepare it for years of continuous production. When it started up again it took another four months to get the process right again. They finally succeeded in 1959 and there are now float plants all over the world, with each able to produce around 1000 tons of glass every day, non-stop for around 15 years.

第5自然段：
皮尔金顿在1953年建造了一个试验工厂，在1955年说服了公司建造一个全尺寸的工厂。但是，在连续14个月的生产中，每个月给公司造成了10万英镑的费用，工厂才开始生产出可用的玻璃。此外，一旦他们成功制造出可销售的平板玻璃，该机器被关闭以进行维护，以准备数年的连续生产。重启后，又花了四个月的时间再次调整工艺。最终，他们在1959年成功了，现在世界各地都有浮法工厂，每个工厂能够连续生产大约1000吨玻璃，持续生产约15年。

第6自然段

Float plants today make glass of near optical quality. Several processes – melting, refining, homogenising – take place simultaneously in the 2000 tonnes of molten glass in the furnace. They occur in separate zones in a complex glass flow driven by high temperatures. It adds up to a continuous melting process, lasting as long as 50 hours, that delivers glass smoothly and continuously to the float bath, and from there to a coating zone and finally a heat treatment zone, where stresses formed during cooling are relieved.

第6自然段：
现代的浮法工厂生产出近乎光学品质的玻璃。在熔炉中，2000吨的熔融玻璃同时进行熔化、精炼和均化等多个工艺步骤。这些步骤在高温下以复杂的玻璃流动形式发生在不同的区域。这构成了一个持续的熔化过程，持续时间长达50个小时，使玻璃顺利连续地进入浸铸槽，然后进入涂层区域和最后的热处理区域，以释放冷却过程中形成的应力。

第7自然段

The principle of float glass is unchanged since the 1950s. However, the product has changed dramatically, from a single thickness of 6. 8 mm to a range from sub-millimetre to 25 mm, from a ribbon frequently marred by inclusions and bubbles to almost optical perfection. To ensure the highest quality, inspection takes place at every stage. Occasionally, a bubble is not removed during refining, a sand grain refuses to melt, a tremor in the tin puts ripples into the glass ribbon. Automated on-line inspection does two things. Firstly, it reveals process faults upstream that can be corrected. Inspection technology allows more than 100 million measurements a second to be made across the ribbon, locating flaws the unaided eye would be unable to see. Secondly, it enables computers downstream to steer cutters around flaws.

第7自然段：
浮法玻璃的原理与20世纪50年代以来没有改变。然而，产品发生了巨大变化，从最初的6.8毫米单一厚度变为亚毫米到25毫米的范围，从经常受到包括和气泡影响的带状玻璃变为几乎光学完美品质。为了确保最高质量，每个阶段都进行检查。偶尔，精炼过程中无法去除气泡，沙粒无法熔化，银锡中的颤动会在玻璃带上形成纹路。在线自动检测技术可以揭示上游的工艺缺陷，并进行纠正。检测技术可以每秒进行超过1亿次的测量，定位肉眼无法看到的缺陷。其次，它使下游计算机能够在切割时绕过缺陷。

第8自然段

Float glass is sold by the square metre, and at the final stage computers translate customer requirements into patterns of cuts designed to minimise waste.