What Is a Heat Source?
A heat source is a source that generates or absorbs heat and supplies it to another source. It can refer not only to heaters, but also to facilities and equipment that supply heat for heating, cooling, and hot water supply.
Types of Heat Sources
Heat sources generate heat using electricity, gas, or fuel. The most common of these methods uses electricity to generate heat. There are several types of heat sources, such as resistance heating that uses the heat generated when an electric current is applied to a metal (Joule heat), induction heating that uses the magnetic field generated by a heating coil with an alternating current, microwave heating and infrared heating that use the frictional heat generated by the vibration of molecules caused by electromagnetic waves, and so forth, which are used according to the heating target and application. They are used in different ways depending on the heating target and application.
In resistance heating, which is the most widely used method, the basic heat source is the sheath heater. The electric heating wire is covered with a metal sheath, which is used in many products for both home and industrial use. Because they are easy to bend and surface process, sheathed heaters are incorporated into a variety of heat sources with different shapes and uses.
Examples include flange heaters, cast heaters, circulation heaters, and micro heaters. Other examples of heat sources using resistance heating include thin film heaters, plate heaters, rubber heaters, and tube heaters with these heaters wrapped around tubes.
Heat sources using the infrared heating principle include lamp heaters and line heaters. They are used in the manufacture of semiconductors, machine materials, and resin materials, as well as in the drying of food products and printed matter, because they can heat objects without contact using electromagnetic waves in the near-infrared to far-infrared range.
Types of Heat Source Facilities
Heat source facilities are responsible for generating the heat necessary for heat exchange in the air conditioning and hot water supply systems of buildings, factories, and other facilities. Boilers are heat source facilities that supply steam and hot water by burning fuels. In addition to general hot water boilers that use fossil fuels, there are biomass boilers that use industrial waste such as wood chips as fuel. Heat pumps, which use electricity to transfer heat extracted from low-temperature materials to high-temperature materials, are also widely used.