This patent application US20110302961 describes a continuous foaming method without cutting or sawing. Also in this case, continuous foaming on an endless belt is used but the glass/foaming agent powder is put in segments on the belt. In this way, the resulting foam is segmented. The individual blocks are lift up to a vertical position and introduced in a lehr. This lehr is essentially a hollow glass lehr. In this way, the total setup can be also much shorter than in the case of a horizontal lehr.

But the patent also gives a nice summary of the current state of the art. In my opinion, the foamed segments will not be flat and this process will generate a lot of waste due to extra cutting.

The idea to anneal vertically remains an important point due to the huge saving which can be generated by reducing the length of the lehr. But on the other hand, the ribbon width will be limited in that way because forced convection has also its practical limits.

If a suitable land can be found (length, flatness, ….), BELGLASCZ advises to work with radiation / natural convection cooling of a wide ribbon like developed by CNUD EFCO. All methods to work with a shorter lehr end up with more waste. It was suggested to use this waste for foamed glass gravel, but the added value of that product will always be  much smaller than boards.