Gas Fired Infrared Conveyor Furnace

Infrared Heating Technologies (IHT) recently designed, manufactured, and installed a Natural Gas Fired Infrared Conveyor Belt Furnace, Cooler, and Controls System for a major manufacturer of furniture and bedding springs.

All springs are work hardened during the coiling manufacturing process and must be properly annealed to maintain spring-back after loading. The pictured furnace and cooling system heats the springs to temperatures of approximately 550 Deg F – 750 Deg F for the continuous in-line annealing process and then cools them prior to unloading.

Production throughput for the pictured spring annealing and cooling system is in excess of 1,200 pounds per hour. The typical heat residence time inside the furnace is only 5 minutes, with a cooling time of only 2.5 minutes.  The very high throughput for this relatively small system is due to the high source temperature of the gas-fired infrared burners (approximately 1,600 Deg F heater temperatures) and high thermal transfer efficiency of the natural gas infrared (IR) heating. The gas-fired infrared system has a very low operating cost due to the efficiency and low consumption cost of natural gas.

The furnace system includes three (3) heat temperature control zones, each incorporating top and bottom, (above the belt and below the belt), Maxon RadMax premix gas-fired infrared burners. These burners are implemented into the furnace structure using our proprietary design for reducing the heater panel manifold temperatures, while still maintaining the full burn temperature of the gas-fired heater panel surface for maximum efficiency and heater longevity.

The system includes all gas train and safety circuitry controls to meet and exceed NFPA 86 guidelines for the safe operation of industrial ovens and furnaces. The controls are available as standard and with optional PLC and color touch screen HMI for ease of use.

The conveyance is a stainless steel flat wire conveyor belt with variable frequency speed control and positive tracking sprockets. The conveyor belt is supported by passive rolls outside the heated zone and a removable type-304 stainless steel solid rod slider supports inside the heated zones. The cool zone is ambient air forced cooling with a distributed hole plenum for air distribution.

These direct fire gas infrared heater, oven, and furnace systems have been implemented for a variety of processes including preheating, drying, curing, annealing, and tempering.

Infrared Heating Technologies’ (IHT) heater, infrared industrial oven, and furnace systems are designed and manufactured to meet the customer’s specific heat processing requirements while exceeding the highest industrial standards for machine building. IHT infrared industrial oven engineers work with the customer from the original concept, through the design phase, fabrication, and final testing and run-off.

Call us today for a free, no-obligation consultation at (865) 535-0050. Or email us at info@infraredheating.com