剑桥雅思8Test2阅读Passage1原文翻译 sheet glass manufacture: the float process 玻璃制造
剑桥雅思8阅读第二套题目第一篇文章介绍了某种玻璃板的制作方法。文章一共8段，大体可以分为三部分：之前玻璃制作方法的缺陷所在，浮法制玻璃工艺的诞生、原理和应用，以及现代工艺的改进。下面是具体每一段的翻译。
点击查看这篇雅思阅读中需要大家掌握的重点词汇与具体题目的答案解析：
剑桥雅思8Test2阅读Passage1答案解析 Sheet glass manufacture: the float process
雅思真题阅读词汇 剑桥雅思8 test 2 passage 1 玻璃板制造
剑桥雅思8 Test2 Passage1阅读原文翻译
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.
自美索不达米亚人和埃及人时代以来，玻璃仅是沙子，纯碱和石灰的混合物。当加热到约1500摄氏度（℃）时，它变成熔融物，缓慢冷却后会变硬。制造透明平板玻璃的第一种成功方法涉及到旋转。该方法非常有效，因为玻璃在变软和变硬之间没有接触到任何表面，因此保持了完美的光泽。但是，该过程耗时长并且劳动强度大。
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.
然而，对平板玻璃的需求非常高，世界各地的玻璃制造商都在寻找一种连续制造平板玻璃的方法。第一种文章来自老烤鸭雅思连续制造工艺通过两个热辊挤压熔融的玻璃，类似于旧日的粉碎机。这样就可以使几乎任何厚度的玻璃被不间断地制造出来，但是滚子会在玻璃两面留下痕迹。稍后，它们需要进行研磨和抛光处理。该过程的这一部分消耗了大约20％的玻璃，并且机器非常昂贵。
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.
用于制造平板玻璃的浮法是阿利斯泰尔·皮尔金顿（Alistair Pilkington）发明的。该方法可以制造用于建筑物的透明，着色和涂层玻璃，以及用于车辆的透明和着色玻璃。皮尔金顿一直在尝试改善熔化过程，并在1952年提出使用熔融金属床来制造平板玻璃的想法，从而完全消除在漂浮池中使用滚筒的必要性。金属必须在低于玻璃硬化点的温度（约600℃）熔化，但不能在低于熔融玻璃的温度（约1500℃）下沸腾。最好的金属是锡。
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.
这一想法的其余部分依靠重力，以确保熔融金属的表面完全平坦且水平。因此，当将熔融玻璃倒在熔融锡上时，玻璃的底面也将是完全平坦的。如果玻璃保持足够高温，它将在文章来自老烤鸭雅思熔融锡上流动，直到上表面也平坦，水平且与下表面完全平行。一旦玻璃冷却到604°C或更低，就会变得足够坚硬，很难留下痕迹，并且可以用滚轴运出冷却区。由于玻璃和锡之间表面张力的相互作用，玻璃只能是六毫米厚。碰巧的是，当时平板玻璃市场的60％都是六毫米玻璃。
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.
皮尔金顿于1953年建立了一个试验工厂，到1955年，他说服自己的公司建立了一个大型工厂。然而，在14个月的不间断生产，并每月花费公司100,000 英镑之后，工厂才生产出第一块能用的玻璃。一旦他们成功制造出可销售的平板玻璃，就关闭了机器，从而为多年的连续生产做准备。当它再次启动时，又花了四个月的时间才重新校准流程。他们终于在1959年取得了成功，现在世界各地都有浮法制玻工厂，每个工厂每天能够生产约1000吨玻璃，可以不间断生产约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.
如今，浮法生产的玻璃接近光学品质。在熔炉中的2000吨熔融玻璃同时进行熔融，精制，均质化等多个过程。它们出现在由高温驱动的复杂玻璃流中的不同区域。连续熔化过程可以持续50小时，从而将玻璃平稳连续地输送到浮槽中，然后从那里到达镀膜区，并最后到达热处理区，在这里消除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.
自20世纪50年代以来，浮法玻璃的原理就没有改变。但是，产品发生了巨大的变化，从单一的6. 8毫米厚变成从亚毫米到25毫米不等，从经常被杂质和气泡损坏的平板到几乎完美的光学效果。为了确保最高质量，在每个阶段都要进行检查。有时，精炼过程中未能去除的气泡，无法融化的沙砾，以及锡的震颤会在玻璃带中形成波纹。自动化的在线检查会做两件事。首先，它揭示可以修正的上游流程故障。检测技术可以在玻璃板上进行每秒超过1亿次的测量，从而定位肉眼无法看到的缺陷。其次，它使下游计算机能够引导切割器解决缺陷。
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.
浮法玻璃按平方出售，在最后阶段，计算机将客户需求转换为旨在最大程度减少浪费的切割模式。
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