The Many Applications & Uses of Ovens

Today there are many uses worldwide for something as basic as ovens. An oven as we all know it is something that is enclosed and is used to produce heat inside the enclosure. At home, you use an oven to make yourself and/or family dinner or for baking consumable foods. Maybe you also use it for small art projects at home as well. Today around the globe the same concept of producing heat inside enclosures is used for many different things. Every day we work with our customers in quoting ovens that fit their specific needs. The customer’s “end result” and specifications to get the job done can vary greatly from one customer/process to the next for the very same piece of equipment.

Pre-Heating Metal for Welding

One common application that comes to my mind is simple. The preheating of metal parts prior to welding. A metal fabrication shop utilizes a dry heat Memmert oven to preheat the small metal parts inside the oven prior to welding them to a larger piece of metal/component. The reason they do this is the minimize the amount of expansion and contraction of the metal before, after, and during the welding process. The metal parts are loaded into the Memmert oven and baked for 1 hour prior to being welded in place where needed.

Curing Coatings and Adhesives with Heat

The very same oven that we are heating these metal parts in for fabrication shops we are also supplying to customers that are curing coatings and adhesives that are on circuitry power boards they manufacture. The power boards are loaded into the oven after the manufacturing process and baked at low heat for a short period of time to cure the coatings and adhesives applied to the components of the power board. This low heat baking process ensures proper curing of the coatings/ adhesives, reduces the time it takes to cure in a natural air setting and ensures there is no damage done to the power board itself.

Heating Clay with Precision

This very same Memmert oven is used in the automotive industry for gently warming/holding clay to make it pliable for sculpting and forming concept ideas in vehicles. These are just a few examples of how our customers utilize Memmert Universal ovens within industrial applications today.

Medical / Healthcare

Memmert Universal oven units are commonly utilized in the medical/ healthcare industry as well. The final cure of hard-coated optical lenses is accomplished utilizing a standard Universal oven. Today many optical companies who coat their lenses in protective material or UV protectant will coat their lenses in this material which then needs to be loaded into an oven, usually in a cleanroom setting, to cure the material that is coated on these lenses. This is to ensure proper cure of the material and no damage done to the lenses themselves.

The same oven can be used for dry heat sterilization of many medical components. Surgical items, personal protective equipment, implant devices and orthopedics. Depyrogenation of glassware is also a common use for universal ovens, dry heat sterilization used throughout the pharmaceutical industry where pyrogens need to be removed from glass containers holding pharmaceuticals prior to being used as an injectant into a patient. Heating these glass containers up to a certain temperature for a specific length of time ensures that the pyrogens are removed and there is a reduction of bacterial endotoxin.

Testing Infrastructure & Building Materials

Our last example (there are many, many more) that the Memmert Universal oven is relevant within our customer market segments, we look at infrastructure and building materials. The roads and sidewalks that many people across the world use daily. Or the roof that you currently have over your head, or the walls protecting you from weather outside. Concrete and asphalt samples are loaded into our heating ovens to simulate hot summer days and how it affects the physical performance or breakdown of these components. These studies are commonly done by departments of transportation across the country in an attempt to find the best/ most durable product to stand up to the environmental conditions in that specific area. Building products such as wood are dried and cured in large ovens to remove moisture from the wood to prevent warping or shrinkage. Asphalt shingles are tested at high temperatures to study the breakdown of the product over time when exposed to a certain amount of heat. Simulating how the shingles may break down over time when on the roof of your home.

Definition of an “Oven” something as simple as “chamber that is heated”

All very different applications in which “heating & drying” takes place in the Memmert Universal oven in today’s society for products or items that you may never imagine. For more information visit our site or give us a call today.