Day 1 Gabbert Cullet, Fenton Glass, Ogelbay Museum and Kinetic Theory of Glasses

Greetings! Today was the first leg of journey exploring the glass and ceramic industries of West Virginia. The day started with a visit to Gabbert Cullet in Williamstown, WVa. Cullet, by simple definition is the recyclable glass. One of the more interesting points taken from this experience was the glass being separated by hand into color schemes. Next, our group visited Fenton Glass, also in Williamstown. Fenton Glass is no longer in active production, as it has succumbed to the harsh realities of economics. Our last visit was to Ogelbay Glass Museum where our group was lucky enough to participate in the production process for creating a glass vase.

The glass vase experience demonstrated a unique physics concept that is important to our class: Kinetic Theory of Gases. The included images show the artist blowing air into the molten glass and then covering the tube with his thumb. This prevents the air from escaping. Now, the trapped air is subject to the heat energy of the molten glass. The heat speeds up the random motion of the air molecules intensifying the collisions with the walls of the molten glass; this causes the molten glass to expand. Yet, what equations can we use to explain this phenomenon? This needs to be stressed greatly; when you are in doubt about how to describe a natural occurrence mathematically, look back to Newton's Laws and/or Work-Energy. Let's use Newton's Laws. We are all familiar with the 2nd Law - F=ma. However another way of describing this is to consider an impulse.

An impulse (J or I) is defined as a force applied over a time period, or F delta t. This is also equal to a change in momentum (p). Momentum is equal to mass * velocity. Now consider the air molecules in the molten glass. Their mass is unchanged, but the heat causes the velocities to increase. As the velocities increase, the force applied to the walls of the molten glass increases pushing the glass outward or causing it to expand. The expansion will cease as, 1. heat energy dissipates, and 2. the expanded walls begin to rob the air molecules of their kinetic energy by way of friction and the increased distance of travel.