Process Heaters
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Process air heaters, in stock and custom designed, are employed in heating air or other gases in ducts, autoclaves, or ovens for many industrial heat applications. Sheathed tubular, finned tubular, and finned strip elements consistently outperform gas, oil, and open coil electric units in both heating efficiency and safety. Elements are available separately for use in OEM equipment. Special materials and custom designs are available for marine applications, power plants, or hazardous applications. Process radiant heaters include a large selection of elements, fixtures, and panels for the best solution where heated process air or direct contact is impossible, impractical, or undesirable. Drying, curing, preheating, shrinking, and thermoforming are frequent applications. Chromalox sensors and controls are available to provide single-source heating systems suited to your commercial heating application. |
Finned Heaters
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Finstrip™ elements are superior to open coil elements since the heating coil is completely encased in a metal sheath, minimizing a shock hazard due to accidental contact with the heater. The rigid metal sheath minimizes hot spots and electrical shorting, likely with open coil elements. Application temperatures to 565°F are typical using finned strip units. Fintube™ elements have a finned tubular design that provides the same benefits as the finned strip heater and additional features, allowing for special bending configurations to provide higher concentrations of installed kW for a given area. The elements can be supplied with bulkhead threaded fittings, and may include optional hermetically sealed terminals, or extra heavy wall thickness for use in atmospheres containing hazardous fumes or gasses. Finned element diameters of 0.315″ and 0.475″ are standard, with high temperature aluminum painted steel sheath and furnace brazed fins being the most common materials. Stainless Steel or MONEL™ sheath and fins are also available for corrosive environments.
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Duct Heaters
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Chromalox designs process air duct heaters specifically for the power generation industry. For instance, our designs optimize the heating of air fed into combustion and prevent condensation. Durable INCOLOY™ sheath elements provide for outlet temperatures of up to 1,200°F/650°C.
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Forced Air Heaters
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Adding a fan to a heater creates artificial air movement. This air movement allows for a more compact heater than the convection heater since rapidly moving air removes the heat from the heater surface more quickly. The forced air heater forces air over very long distances and is usually the choice for heating larger areas.
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Process Radiant Heaters
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The metal-sheath type heater is easily installed and may be operated in any position. The units may be mounted to form banks, tunnels or oven sections. They are available in various lengths to accommodate work of varying dimensions. Movable mounting clamps and bolts are supplied to accommodate many mounting configurations. Heaters may also be furnished single-ended wired with 18″ leads as standard.
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Radiant Heaters – Quartz
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Quartz heaters can be used with many different applications, including textiles and non-woven fabrics, plastics, paper and paperboard, and metals. Higher operating temperatures than metal sheath elements permit faster work speeds in some applications. Very fast heat-up/cool-down make quartz lamp heaters suitable for applications requiring immediate operating temperature and/or quickly reduced heat in event of work stoppage.
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Radiant Heaters – Wide Area
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Wide area radiant heaters can be mounted to radiate in any direction and can reliably operate, with no reduction in radiant output over the life of the heater. The lightweight building block approach allows for a modular installation which is easily expandable. One-piece bonded construction resists damage from vibration and shock. These heaters also have a lower operating cost with up to 80% of the input energy transmitted to and absorbed by the work material.
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Ceramic Heaters
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Ceramic Heaters are used for a number of different applications, including thermoforming, water evaporation, enameling, and powder coat curing. Ceramic sleeves in the element mounting tower offer further protection against lead wires shorting against the reflectors. Temperature sensitive labels visually indicate heater operation. Higher temperature capability is possible with 6″ long heavy duty, flexible lead wires.
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