Selecting The Right Industrial Heating Element

Virtually every industry uses heat in some capacity during the manufacturing process. Industrial heating elements are among the most crucial components in any industrial heating system. Selecting the right industrial heating element can save money, time, and create a more efficient process, regardless of the application. Some engineers overlook the importance of the role an industrial heating element plays in a manufacturing process, this is a guide to demonstrate how to select the right heating element.

Introduction to Industrial Heating

Many industries such as manufacturing and chemical processing require substances to be at precise temperatures to manufacture products. Often times, industrial heaters are used for their efficacy and dependability. Manufacturers are constantly looking for new ways to optimize their manufacturing process. Heating and temperature play a big role in this improvement of manufacturing processes. Back in the early 18th century, the inability to control heat effectively produced bottlenecks in the manufacturing process. Scientists and businessmen were always vigilant to innovate and temperature control was a large factor in optimization.

Industrial Heaters, or Process Heaters, as they are commonly referred to, are used to make a wide variety of processes more efficient across a large range of industries including the water purification, medical, aerospace, injection molding, textile, food service, packaging, paper making, automotive, among many, many other manufacturing sectors.

This article will give a concise overview of industrial heaters and how they fit into various manufacturing and chemical industries and how and why the right one should be chosen. This article will help you better understand the role industrial heating element products play in manufacturing, answer questions about industrial elements and heaters, and finally, serve as a resource for anyone seeking to educate themselves about the choise of industrial heating elements. Finding a industrial heater to meet your needs is a question of having a clear understanding of what function the heater needs to fulfill.

Selecting the Right Heating Element

Selecting the right heating element starts with collecting the right information, and that begins with asking the right questions. These questions should concentrate on how to heat up the solid, liquid, or gas in question in your industrial process, and what the specifications of the heating element must be to achieve the best heating performance. These key questions include:

• What type of heating element alloy should be used?
• What temperature does the heating element need to reach?
• What sort of heating and temprature control is required?
• What is the required voltage for the heating element?
• How long will the intervals be during which the heating element needs to be active?

Having correct answers to these questions is critical to selecting the appropriate heating element. It's helpful to have the answers organized before procuring a heating element or industrial heater.

Benefits of Choosing the Right Heating Element

Selecting an ideal heating element for an industrial heater has tremendous impact on the quality of the product of the process the heater is used in, the cost of creating the product, and, most importantly, the safety of the operation.

Installing the right heating element in an industrial process heater yields the following benefits:

1. Reduced Operational Costs

Even if the heating element which is ideal for your industrial heater is more expensive than an alternative element, costs over time will be lower, saving money over the operational life of the heater.

2. Higher Operational Efficiency

Selecting the right heating element will improve the productivity of industrial processes. When the element is constructed of the correct material and set up to conduct heat optimally for the medium being heated, energy consumption goes down.

3. Improved Safety

Choosing the appropriate heating element alleviates the potential for malfunction which can lead to serious safety consequences. Industrial-process downtime is the of the lowest concern when the consequences of having incorrect equipment can be as serious as an explosion.

4. Higher Return on Investment

Optimal operational efficiency mean the return on investment of each dollar allocated to an industrial process sees a higher return. With the right equipment, you see higher profit margins, lower waste, and more efficient business.

5. Improved Longevity of Operational Life

When all components of an industrial heating system are ideally compatible, the system works at optimal efficiency and doesn't degrade as quickly as a system without ideal components. Similarly, when an industrial heating system is running at peak efficiency the entire industrial process runs smoothly, extending the lifecycle of the entire system as each cycle degrades the equipment less.

One of the most significant ways to improve operational efficiency in industrial heating is often overlooked, the difference between the element construction alloy. The difference between a Fecral element and Nichrome element, for example. A Fecral element is more efficient than a Nichrome element at transferring heat between mediums, and this small difference translates into significant cost savings and longer operational life for the equipment.

Even when the appropriate heating element is selected, a suitable temperature control panel is required to use the equipment effectively. Aside from having the right industrial heating element, using an appropriate temperature control panel has the greatest impact on operational efficiency.

More information about improving operational energy efficiency is available from the Department of Energy.

Cost of Choosing The Wrong Element

The cost associated with using the wrong industrial heating element for heating applications can be represented in terms of labour costs, material replacement cost, and most importantly, the potential health and safety cost.

For example, a maintenance worker tasked with replacing a heating element in an oil-heating system, unaware that an oil-heating element of specific parameters was the only suitable replacement part, thinking that he could instead use a water-heating element for the oil-heating application.

Thankfully there were no disastrous consequence in this particular example, however, the maintenance worker would learn the hard way that a heating element for water cannot be used in oil-heating equipment because each liquid has a different viscosity and therefore requires specific equipment.

The incident described here has potentially serious costs and impact, as the entire process can be compromised because one part was incompatible. The heating element fails under the stress of working in an application it was not suited for, causing all of the liquid to be contaminated. The mishap would incurr heavy costs because of process downtime, the cost of parts for replacing the original oil element and the water element which was also destroyed, and the cost of the additional labour which needed to be employed.

The whole situation would have been avoided if the appropriate heating element is used.

Ordering Industrial Heating Elements

Begin the industrial heating element procurement process for acquiring an industrial heating element by filling out a requirement specification sheet accurately. List all requiremnets as accurately as you can.

Heating elements can be made to be compatible with practically any existing industrial heating infrastructure. Accurately listing the specifications can supply the product or it can be custom build if it isn’t standard. Order custom heating elements or custom industrial heating equipment for niche or non-standard applications.

Look for a one-stop-shop for all industrial heating needs for any industry. Look for products and services for not only industrial heating elements, but also for fully-customized heaters and replacement parts. Working with one centralized supplier makes the procurement process, fast, easy, and straightforward.

Recognize that when something goes wrong and interrupts the industrial process every second counts, so keep a priority team standing by to handle emergencies and critical situations.