Wisconsin Oven Corp., East Troy, has shipped a natural-gas-fired three-zone curing conveyor oven to a leader in metal fabrication to cure a solvent-based adhesive that will be printed on a continuous corrugated aluminum web. The curing oven will be placed in a complete printing line, and is designed to handle a corrugated aluminum web 24 inches wide and 0.125-inch thick, weighing up to one pound per square foot or less. The adhesive deposition will be up to 300 mg/sq. ft. on the top surface only.
The curing oven has a maximum temperature rating of 300°F; the work chamber is 25 feet long, 2.3 feet wide, and six inches high. The chamber has three zones of heat control: each zone is 8 1/3 feet long.
Zone 3 may be used as a cool-down zone, with the recirculation and exhaust blower operating and the burner off. The belt conveyor oven utilizes a stainless steel flat flex belt for thermal efficiency. The recirculation system is configured with top-down airflow, which provides uniform heat distribution along the top of the aluminum web, and is optimal for an even cure of the applied adhesive.
“With this project, we wanted to make sure the oven design would maximize the uniformity of the cure,” says Tom Trueman, Senior Application Engineer of Wisconsin Oven. “The three temperature zones and top-down airflow were the ideal solution, because the zones give the customer the flexibility to adjust the process for the best end result.”
