Radiation Distribution

Elstein infrared heaters are produced with all kinds of different dimensions and geometries. They are available with round, long, square, rectangular and even with hemi-sphere shapes. The spatial distribution of the diffuse energy radiated in all directions, depends on the outer shape.

The intensity is determined by the respective surface temperature. At this point, please note that the curved shapes of the FSR or LCR do not have any focussing effect with respect to the radiation.

In plants with a large number of heaters, the radiation distributions of all the heaters overlap. If, for example, several heaters with the same power output are installed next to each other in a machine, there is an increase in power in the center of the material to be heated, which is mostly unwanted. For uniform power density on the material to be heated, the heaters near the edge must be run with higher power or a higher temperature than the center ones.

The small design of Elstein infrared heaters enables the user to realise very different radiation distributions on the material to be heated. As radiation energy occurring at a point is the sum of the energy from all the heaters, it is sometimes difficult to radiate narrow areas with a particularly intensive or weak radiation. In these cases considerable improvements can be achieved by using shiny metallic reflector plates or shutters.

One often asked question is, whether additional thermal insulation is needed on the back side of the heaters. This thermal insulation only has a useful effect if the requirements for the uniformity of the radiation distribution on the material to be heated, are low. The thermal insulation causes heating of the inner emitters by the outer emitters of a heating area. In the most unfavourable case, the inner emitters can even become superfluous. The majority of the radiation areas are therefore not insulated.

In addition, the modern HTS, SHTS and HSR series radiators already have integrated thermal insulation, which does not usually require any additional insulation.