Trace heating what is

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Hose and Fitting Stores. Corporate Locations. What is heat trace? Required Heat Trace Calculations. Types of Heat Trace Cables. Next Steps. See how our process solutions team can help improve quality, increase efficiency, and reduce risk. Contact Us Today! Conversely, when the heat loss decreases as the ambient temperature rises or product flows , the cable reacts by reducing its heat output.

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Required Analytics Marketing Third Party. Electrical trace heating refers to the process of maintaining or raising the temperature of pipes and vessels through specially engineered cables.

During the winter season, temperatures are extremely cold and can fall below freezing levels. When this occurs, businesses can turn to trace heating as a solution to protect their important pipes and vessels from freezing at sub-zero temperatures. When temperatures drop to freezing levels, pipes can get frozen which may cause them to burst as a result of ice expansion.

Thus, trace heating helps to prevent frost from building up in water pipes and vessels by maintaining temperatures at a designated level.

Heat tracing can also be implemented in processes that require temperature maintenance such as the insulation for steam pipes. Another example would be when certain liquids require being kept at a specific temperature in order for them to be transported safely. For these processes, heat tracing can still be applicable even in the absence of freezing temperatures. Trace heating is achieved by connecting specially engineered cables made of a resistance element to the pipe or vessel.

The electric cables are then used to maintain temperatures by replacing heat loss with their power output. Trace heating cables contain two copper conductor wires that are parallel in length which creates a heating zone with a resistance filament in place. With a fixed voltage supplied, a constant wattage is produced which then heats up the zone. Trace heating cables are monitored by a thermostat to ensure that the right amount of thermal energy is produced so that the cable does not overheat or underheat.

A series resistance heating cable comprises of a high-resistance wire that is typically insulated and encased in a protective cover. When powered at a certain voltage, thermal energy is produced from the resistance of the wire. The advantage of a series resistance heating cable is that it generally cost lower and is able to maintain very high temperatures for longer lines. As a result, series resistance trace heating cables are usually fixed in length and cannot be shortened in the field as a break or failure anywhere along the line would cause the entire cable to fail.

Therefore, series resistance trace heating cables are typically used for longer pipe line heating processes. However, there is still a need to monitor and control the circuit as the resistance material might melt due to overheating.

Series resistance trace heating is usually applied when there is a need for long pipe line process heating, such as the quay side of load pipes on oil refineries and along oil pipe lines.

A constant wattage trace heating cable design consists of a heating element wrapped around two parallel wires that are insulated. There are multiple zones throughout the trace heating cable that experiences constant wattage.

A notch is created in the insulation on the opposing sides of the conductors. A small heating circuit is then produced by fusing the heating element to the exposed conductor wire and this is repeated throughout the entire cable.