Automation of thermal processing of quartz glass with the following computer treatment of the quality of siloxane communication

The strength characteristics and isotropic physical properties of quartz glass give broad prospects for its use as a resonator for navigation systems of aircraft, as well as for complex optical systems and automation elements. To obtain a sufficiently hard surface with the desired properties, it is necessary to create conditions for the occurrence of siloxane bonds - silicon and oxygen compounds. During the formation of such bonds, the process of polymerization and annealing of quartz glass, high-strength resonator samples are obtained. The quality of the resulting surface is determined by different methods - fractal geometry, recumbent drop and Vickers. In the presented material, the authors propose to use the recumbent drop method (distilled water was used). To obtain samples of resonators, a resistance furnace has been designed and constructed, which operates in an automated mode using a personal computer control. Also, a computer program “Droplet stacking method” was written in Delphi 7.0, which presents the results of monitoring the annealing process, including the surface annealing temperature and contact angle. The results of measurements and calculations can be recorded as a file and observed on the display. The program interface is intuitive and convenient for controlling the process of obtaining samples. In addition, to form a high-quality connection, a program was also written to determine the radius of the nucleus and the value of the Gibbs free energy, which is necessary for the formation of the nucleus. The experimental results obtained and the calculations performed by the lying drop and fractal geometry methods have demonstrated the agreement between the results within the error limits of the methods.