Ovens

Ovens

Ovens are commercial or industrial equipment that remove liquids from products and food through drying, curing, baking, dehydrating and aging. They are also used to activate adhesives, gel or fuse materials together, heat-set, heat-shrink, preheat, sinter, melt, heat-treat, laminate and thermal bond other materials. Infrared ovens are used in a variety of heating, drying and curing and applications in a variety of industries, including petrochemical, finishing, food processing, packaging and 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.

Oven processes require heat and mass transfer, which can be accomplished by conduction ovens, convection ovens or radiant heat infrared ovens. Often, commercial ovens are designed with a combination of these types of heat transfers because no single heating technology is perfect for every process. Industrial oven manufacturers offer two possible configurations: batch ovens, conveyor ovens or walk-in 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, and walk-in ovens are large enough for an individual or large wheeled racks to enter. Both batch and continuous ovens may be used as curing ovens, drying ovens or sintering ovens while vacuum ovens heat metals within a convection-preventing vacuum at high temperatures for sintering and heat treating.