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Heatec built the thermal fluid heater pictured above for a well-known manufacturer of roofing materials. It is a HCI helical coil heater with an input of 1 million Btu/hour. It features a convection section with finned tubing to increase thermal efficiency by 3 percent. Convection sections can be designed to increase thermal efficiency up to 8 percent, depending mainly on operating temperatures. Such 2-pass heaters with a convection section can equal or surpass the thermal efficiency of 3-pass heaters. And unlike a typical 3-pass heater, the 2-pass heater has easy access to the helical coil for maintenance.
Moreover, its single helical coil is much longer than those in comparable 3-pass heaters. So it has much more coil surface area exposed to radiant energy of the burner flame. Consequently, it has a much lower radiant flux rate than the shorter coil of a 3-pass heater. Lower radiant flux rate results in lower film temperature, longer life for thermal fluid, and longer coil life.
The heater has other extraordinary features, like its minium flow bypass valve to maintain constant oil flow, bellows-seal valves to restrain leaking at valve stems, and its duplex pumps for 100% standby readiness.
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