Industrial Oven Types International Thermal Systems

Understanding Common Thermal Processing Vocabulary

ITS offers a chance to build a better thermal processing vocabulary by providing a partial list of thermal prococessing terminology with definitions.

Heat Treat Terms

Oven Component Terms

Industrial Oven Types in General

Baking Oven

The function of baking ovens combines the functions of curing and drying ovens; baking ovens both bring a substance up to a chemically-reactive temperature and drive off moisture in the process. Typical applications are found in the food service industries.

Batch Oven

Also called cabinet or truck-in ovens, batch ovens are essentially heated boxes with insulated doors. Batch ovens process a product at one time in a single group. The parts or products to be cured, dried or baked are brought into the oven in batches on wheeled racks, carts or trucks. Typical applications include powder coating operations and food service.

Bench Oven

Are small, sometimes portable, ovens usually placed on tables or stands. Bench ovens are used during low volume process heating applications.

Convection Oven

Provide consistent process heating through the fluid circulation of gases. The heated gas warms the internal air, which maintains the temperature inside the oven.

Conveyor/Continuous Oven-Belt

Also called tunnel ovens, parts and products move through the oven on a conveyor belt. Conveyor belt ovens are typically part of a Conveyorized processing line, with the oven's conveyor belt set to the line's pass height. Typical applications are found in many industries, especially food service.

Conveyor/Continuous Oven-Overhead

Also called slit ovens, parts and products move through the oven suspended on racks from an overhead monorail. Typical applications are powder coating, painting, and pretreatment lines.

Curing Oven

The function of a curing oven is to bring a substance up to a certain temperature at which a chemical reaction takes place. A typical application is powder coating. Powder coatings are essentially colorized plastic resins; they are sprayed on dry at room temperature, and then must be heated until they flow and set. Once the powder coated parts cool, a thin, uniform film forms a durable and decorative finish. Including composite curing ovens, paint curing ovens and UV curing ovens, alter and prepare certain products, materials and substances by chemical or physical processing, such as hardening rubber or paint, and can be used in powder coating and food preservation as well.

Drying Oven

The function of a drying oven is to remove moisture from a product. Typical applications are pre-treating and painting. Unlike powder coating, where the pigments and binders are applied dry, paints and pretreatments go on wet; the active ingredients are suspended in a liquid base. Once the parts are coated, they must spend time in a drying oven to drive off the liquid base, leaving behind the active ingredients as a dry, hard film.

Foundry Oven

Used for metal melting applications for jewelry manufacturing, mining, die-casting operations, production aluminum foundries, and fine arts studios. They typically have a tilting mechanism, which can be manually operated (e.g., a hand wheel) or powered (e.g., hydraulic tilt).

Infrared Oven

Utilize electromagnetic radiation to transmit heat to the product. Infrared radiation is transferred directly to the product without heating the air inside of the enclosure.

Powder Coating Oven

Are either infrared or convection ovens in which the powder coating on a product is melted and allowed to flow for 2-10 minutes. Within the oven, the product is then exposed to ultraviolet light for just a few seconds to cure and harden the finish.

Storage Oven

Heat parts to make them easier to assemble and are utilized where pressure-sensitive adhesives perform more efficiently at higher temperatures and where pliability aids fit.

Vacuum Oven

Airtight enclosures in which the pressure level remains lower than that of atmospheric pressure. Vacuum ovens guard against undesirable effects of heat processes such as oxidation and contamination.

Walk-in or truck-in Oven

Are large enclosures used for the process heating of large objects, such as trucks or cars, or large product quantities. Walk-in ovens often contain large doorways, cabinet, shelves and racks for convenience.