Industrial Ovens

About Industrial Ovens and Industrial Oven Manufacturers Including: Baking Oven, Batch Ovens, Conveyor Ovens, Curing Ovens, Drying Ovens, Electric Oven, Infrared Ovens, Laboratory Ovens, Ovens, Powder Coating Oven & Vacuum Ovens.

Industrial oven manufacturers design equipment that removes liquids from products through drying, curing, baking, dehydrating and aging. Industrial ovens are also used to activate adhesives, gel and fuse materials together, heat-set, heat-shrink, preheat, sinter, melt, heat-treat, laminate and thermal bond other materials. These processes require heat and mass transfer, which can be accomplished by electric ovens, conduction ovens, convection ovens or radiant heat infrared ovens. Often, commercial ovens are designed with a combination of these types of heat transfers, and typically no single heating technology is perfect for every process. Industrial oven manufacturers offer two possible configurations: batch ovens and continuous, or conveyor ovens. Most commercial ovens fall under the category of batch ovens, which process an individual product in large groups; continuous conveyor ovens consist of automated conveyor systems that move large quantities of products through the industrial oven. Both batch and continuous ovens may be used as curing ovens, drying ovens, powder coating ovens or sintering ovens while vacuum ovens heat metals within a convection-preventing vacuum at high temperatures for sintering and heat treating. While many industrial ovens are used in manufacturing and food processing settings, some laboratory ovens are found in labs and hospitals.

Industrial oven manufacturers manufacture products for a wide variety of applications, including coated paper, textiles, carpet, building materials, tubing, electronics, fuel cells, steel coils and automotive parts. Infrared ovens are used in a variety of preheating, drying, post-heating, thermal bonding, heat-setting, curing and paint finishing applications in a variety of industries, including petrochemical, finishing, food processing, packaging/printing, pulp and paper processing, converting, pharmaceutical, plastics and rubber. Commercial convection and conduction ovens are useful for heat treating, different types of curing, stress relieving, plastic heating, core baking, vacuum thermal forming, and many others. To optimize drying and curing processes, energy sources and internal oven temperatures are precisely monitored in both conveyor and batch ovens.
 
In conduction, heat is applied directly from a solid to one part of an object, exciting the electrons. Molecular collisions, which travel along the object, heat the object as they move. Conduction industrial ovens transfer heat from a hot plate to the bottom of the product or material. There is the possibility that non-uniform heating and mechanical stress may occur in this process, as conductive heating travels only through solids and may result in uneven heating. In convection ovens, excited molecules reach a state of fluid motion as gases or liquids are heated. The heated, less dense molecules move upward, while the cooler, more compact molecules move downward. In a convection oven, which may utilize forced air, the product is heated from the top down by heated air. Convection heating is most typically used for baking, including most food processing. Because convection ovens rely on air to solid heat transfer, premature, non-uniform drying and/or baking may occur.
 
Infrared ovens use radiant heat, which heats the object itself rather than the air within the oven. Lamps emit medium and short wavelength radiation, so that heat is transferred through wavelengths and not through solid to solid conduction or gas to solid convection. Infrared heat is the heat transfer method of choice in the curing of metal, plastic and composite parts and is used to provide the heat catalyst for a wide variety of curing and bonding processes. Infrared heat is suitable for products like web, fabric and products that require powder coat curing and paint finishing. Infrared ovens require significantly less energy to initialize heating processes and do so much more quickly than either convection ovens or conduction ovens, making infrared ovens more cost efficient. Many industrial process ovens utilize both infrared and convection heating in order to achieve the most thorough and cost effective heating.
 

Industrial Ovens and Industrial Oven Manufacturers Image Provided by Intek Corporation	Industrial Ovens and Industrial Oven Manufacturers Image Provided by The Grieve Corporation

Industrial Oven Types

• Baking ovens are used for baking materials or food, are made of inflammable materials and have smooth interior surfaces to allow cleaning.
  
• Batch ovens process a product at one time in a single group.
  
• Bench ovens are small, sometimes portable, ovens usually placed on tables or stands. Bench ovens are used during low volume process heating applications.
  
• Commercial ovens are used to dry, bake, heat, and cure various materials.
• Convection ovens provide consistent process heating through the fluid circulation of gases. The heated gas warms the internal air, which maintains the temperature inside the oven.
  
• Conveyor ovens contain a variety of accessories and are used in continuous high volume process heating applications.
  
• Curing ovens, including composite curing ovens, paint curing ovens and UV curing ovens, alter and prepare certain products, materials and substances by chemical or physical processing, such as hardening rubber or paint, and can be used in powder coating and food preservation as well.
• Drying ovens are used to remove excess moisture from a product.
  
• Infrared ovens utilize electromagnetic radiation to transmit heat to the product. Infrared radiation is transferred directly to the product without heating the air inside of the enclosure.
  
• Powder coating ovens are either infrared or convection ovens in which the powder coating on a product is melted and allowed to flow for 2-10 minutes. Within the oven, the product is then exposed to ultraviolet light for just a few seconds to cure and harden the finish.
  
• Storage ovens heat parts to make them easier to assemble and are utilized where pressure-sensitive adhesives perform more efficiently at higher temperatures and where pliability aids fit.
  
• Vacuum ovens are airtight enclosures in which the pressure level remains lower than that of atmospheric pressure. Vacuum ovens guard against undesirable effects of heat processes such as oxidation and contamination.
  
• Walk-in or truck-in ovens are large enclosures used for the process heating of large objects, such as trucks or cars, or large product quantities. Walk-in ovens often contain large doorways, cabinet, shelves and racks for convenience.

Industrial Oven Terms

 
Annealing - The process of softening an object or changing other properties of the object through cycles of heating and cooling using an industrial oven.
 
Atmospheric Pressure - The amount of force the atmosphere exerts upon the earth's surface, measuring 14.7 psi at sea level.
 
Baking - Removing entrained gases by heating the object up to a low temperature in an industrial oven.
 
BTU (British Thermal Unit) - The amount of heat necessary to change the temperature of one pound of water by one degree Fahrenheit.
 
Conduction - A form of heat transfer through the application of heat to a solid object followed by the subsequent spread of the heat through the object in an industrial oven.
 
Convection - Heat transfer between two objects, one of which is either a liquid or a gas. During convection, the pull of gravity initiates fluid circulation, causing heated molecules to rise and cool molecules to fall.
 
Curing - The process involving the solidification of a material through heating and drying, in industrial ovens. And in which the temperature of the cured object is maintained during the process.
 
Drying - The process of removing a solvent such as moisture from an object by utilizing industrial ovens.
 
Emittance - The capability of the surface to emanate radiant energy.
 
Heat Transfer - The exchange between matter, or parts of the same matter, which always occurs from warm to cool.
 
Heat Treatment - The process of changing properties in solid metals or alloys through heating and cooling applications.
 
Heatsetting - The process of setting the shape of yarn or carpet fibers through the application of heat in industrial ovens, and/or steam. For example, heatsetting creates a permanent twist in yarn.
 
Postheating - Applying heat to an object after the manufacturing process, such as brazing, welding or soldering.
 
Powder Coating - A dry finishing process that utilizes finely ground, electrostatically charged particles, which are sprayed onto a part to be coated. When placed in an industrial oven, the charged parts melt and fuse into a durable, even coating.
 
Preheating - The application of heat in industrial ovens before the manufacturing process.
 
Process Heating - The supplication of heat from industrial ovens to an object or material.
 
Quenching - The rapid cooling of an object heated in an industrial oven.
 
Radiation - The movement of energy in the form of particles, rays or waves.
 
Radio Frequency - The creation of heat by the transfer of energy.
 
Sintering - The formation of large particles from a heap of small, fine particles through the application of heat. In the sintering process, the temperature remains below the melting point.
 
Stress Relieving - Reducing stress in a metal object by raising the temperature of the object and maintaining the object's temperature for a specified amount of time by utilizing industrial ovens.
 
Tempering - Heating steel by different means to a given temperature in industrial ovens and then cooling it, in order to reduce the brittleness in the hardened steel.
 
Thermal Bonding - The application of heat from industrial ovens to produce interlocking among fibers and fabrics.