FME Near Infra-Red (NIR) oven curing sections can reduce the total length of ovens for organic coating applications. A preferred application is for In-Line Coating Sections for Metallic Coating Lines where there are tight constraints for the available area for the coating section. These NIR sections (typically vertical orientation) can accomplish paint curing within a dwell time down to 4 seconds or less (with specially developed paint formulations).
Another suitable application is start/stop (non-continuous) paint lines. This is because the electric NIR oven can startup and shut down within seconds with low heat mass as opposed to conventional ovens that can over heat the metal strip that is stopped in the oven.
Generally the energy consumption of electric infra-red ovens is significantly higher than gas fired convection ovens. This is due to the convection ovens’ ability to better recover the waste process heat, and the generally less expensive cost of gas as an energy source. There are some situations where electrical energy is inexpensive (e.g. near hydro-thermal power sources) and this can also be a deciding factor to adopt NIR curing technology.
FME NIR ovens are designed for reliability and include separately controllable heat output zones allowing reduction in energy consumption on narrow width product. Our specially developed IR lamps have industry leading lamp life.
We carry out detailed cost/benefit analysis for all customers studying NIR technology in order to ensure the most suitable curing technology is selected.
Near Infra-Red Ovens :
