Apparatus for bending and tempering glass sheets by differential cooling

Claim 1

Apparatus for bending and tempering glass sheets comprising: a heating furnace, a chilling section, and a cooling section arranged substantially in line with one another, a conveyor for supporting and conveying a glass sheet along a generally horizontal path successively through said furnace, chilling section and cooling section, means in said furnace for heating said sheet as it passes through said furnace to substantially the softening temperature of the glass, means in said chilling section for directing a gaseous cooling medium under pressure against opposite surfaces of said sheet as it advances through said chilling section, means controlling the pressure of said cooling medium against said opposite surfaces to direct said cooling medium against the bottom surface of said sheet at a greater pressure than the pressure of said cooling medium directed against the upper surface thereof thereby to cool the bottom surface at a greater rate than said upper surface to cause said sheet to bend into a desired curvature, a series of driven rolls mounted in said chilling section above said conveyor, each of said rolls comprising a fixed core and a driven rotatable load supporting sleeve surrounding said core, each of said rolls comprising a generally horizontally extending central portion in substantial parallelism with said conveyor but spaced thereabove a distance slightly greater than the thickness of the glass sheets to be conveyed thereby so that said advancing sheet normally contacts only said conveyor or said roll central portions at any given time during its passage therebetween, each of said rolls including opposite end portions having a common axis disposed above said central portion and substantially above said conveyor for providing adequate clearance for the mounting structure of said conveyor, and inclined portions connecting said end portions to said central portion.