Meeting throughput, improving quality, reducing costs, and safeguarding workers are key objectives for many manufacturers. If this sounds like you, industrial ovens can help you meet these objectives when it comes to processing applications. Used to create high temperatures for heat-treating parts, conditioning metals, and curing coatings, these production ovens provide enormous benefits, including boosting quality, increasing productivity, enhancing competitiveness, and boosting profitability.
Industrial ovens are thermal units used as heating chambers in processing applications in numerous industries, including electronics, semiconductor, and medical. Industrial ovens activate adhesives, meld materials, and shrink, preheat, melt, laminate, and thermally bond materials, among other things. Plus, they instill quality and value in parts and products. However, a critical step in buying an industrial oven is choosing the right one for you. That can be time-consuming and challenging. The information in this article can help you choose the right oven for your needs.
Understanding Your Processing Applications
Understanding your application is crucial when selecting an oven. Start by determining what function your oven needs to provide.
- Function: Consider whether your oven needs to perform tasks such as annealing, baking, curing, sterilizing, burn-in testing, or heat treating.
- Environment: Determine the intended environment for the oven, which could be a clean room, laboratory, or an industrial space. Use this information to choose the basic oven type that best suits your needs.
The most common types of industrial ovens available are:
- Batch
- Continuous Conveyor
- Walk-in
- Class A
Each type has its own set of advantages and disadvantages. For example, Batch ovens are ideal for tasks like drying, curing, aging, annealing, stress relieving, bonding, tempering, preheating, and forming operations. In contrast, Continuous ovens perform the same functions as Batch ovens but deliver a continuous throughput.
Key Factors Driving Industrial Oven Selection
Once you’ve determined the oven type, you’ll need to decide what features and capabilities your oven needs based on your application. Here are several considerations to keep in mind:
Temperature Range & Uniformity
These factors drive consistent heat processing results. Consider the application’s maximum and minimum temperatures and the need to maintain them during processing. Key considerations include cycle time, dwell time, cooldown time, product load, and product type. Oven characteristics affecting uniformity are wall losses, oven openings, product volume and weight, and air distribution and flow volume.
Heating Technology
Heating technology also drives consistent results. Standard heating technologies include Convection (forced convection and natural), which delivers heat evenly to products using blowers and fans; Infrared, which delivers heat to products in exact amounts and to specific points; and Radiant (infrared), which delivers heat using radiation. Each heating technology has its pros and cons. Radiant ovens, for example, heat products at faster rates than convection ovens.
Size and Capacity
Oven size and capacity are often overlooked but essential factors. Lab or Benchtop ovens are ideal for small-batch loads, while Cabinet (or reach-in) ovens suitable for easy product loading and unloading. Walk-in and Truck-in ovens are designed for larger truckload-type applications. Conveyor ovens should be large enough to efficiently space products on the conveyor belt, ensuring optimal heating uniformity. When choosing size and capacity, consider future expansion needs.
Energy Efficiency
Energy efficiency is critical and depends on various oven construction features. Chamber size is a crucial energy-efficient feature, as both too big and too small chambers can waste energy and increase costs. Insulation, exhaust fans, humidity control systems, sealed oven openings, energy-saving modes, and variable speed circulating fans are key energy-saving features. Additionally, controllers play a role in energy efficiency.
Safety Features
While energy efficiency is critical, so is worker safety. So, you may need special design features when the oven and/or controls are located in a hazardous area or you’re processing hazardous materials. Key oven design considerations include spark-resistant fans, suitably rated motors, sealed interconnecting wiring and junction boxes, and remote-control enclosures rated for the specific hazardous area. Security certifications for this type of oven are UL, C-UL, CE, SEMI, IRI, FM, IEEE, and GMP.
Material Compatibility in Oven Selection
An oven’s interior and exterior must suit its environment and the application’s temperature requirements. The type of interior (stainless steel, aluminum fused to steel, mild steel) is especially critical when processing corrosive material or workload contamination can occur. Process-specific factors, such as maximum temperature, size of the chamber, and surface temperature specifications, can also be critical, as well as door seal design, type of atmosphere, and the type and need for air filters.
Ventilation and Exhaust Requirements
Depending on the application, you may need an oven with special construction and components, such as a HEPA filter or other special air filtration system. Class A ovens, for example, must have a forced exhaust feature, a method to prove airflow, a purge timer, and an explosion relief area. Construction techniques, like high-integrity welds, special fabrication methods, and special motor shaft seals, may also be considerations.
Maintenance and Service Demands
Regular oven maintenance is a powerful weapon in a manufacturer’s efforts to protect equipment, prevent downtime, and maximize production. It also boosts oven performance and prevents breakdown. So, considering the ease of maintaining the unit when selecting an oven. Access to service and technical support is also critical. Some oven manufacturers even provide a PM schedule and checklist or guides to preventive maintenance that you can use.
Poor thermal processing can result in scrapped parts, reduced product quality, and increased costs. Industrial ovens can help you achieve address these deficiencies. But finding an oven that optimizes performance as long as it’s in service requires careful consideration. The information in this article can help you decide on an oven. But if you still need clarification, working with an experienced manufacturer like Despatch can help. Its highly skilled technical team can guide you in selecting an oven for your processing application that can help you achieve your throughput, quality, and cost objectives while safeguarding workers and the surrounding equipment.
If you still have questions about purchasing an oven after reading our article, you can check out our field guide to buying an industrial oven. Or you can call one of our highly skilled customer service people to assist you at 952-649-6529. Put our knowledge to work for you.