HEH (High Efficiency Heater) Permanent Magnet Heater for Aluminium billets (PATENTED)

GMS has developed a new type of Induction Heaters, a so-called High Efficiency Heater (HEH) for Aluminum Billets, based on the principle of Permanent Magnets. In this case a series of permanent magnets is rotated around a static Aluminum billet.

For extrusion purposes, Aluminum billets are pre-heated to about 400-500 °C before passing through the die.

Today the main heating technologies used for Aluminum are following:

Gas Furnaces

low thermal efficiency of 40-45%, high CO₂ emission, competitive costs (low cost of gas).

Traditional Induction Technology

the magnetic field is generated by water-cooled coils: thermal efficiency of 55% because Aluminum is non-magnetic, but highly conductive material.

A significant improvement of the Traditional Induction Technology consists of the forced billet rotation in a transverse DC magnetic field produced by superconducting coils. Such Technology has a high efficiency of about 85%, but requires a complex and expensive configuration (Cryogenic System, Superconducting Magnets, very robust Rotating System with large braking torque) and its industrial application is complicated.

GMS exclusive HEH (High Efficiency Heating) Technology for the pre-heating of billets before extrusion.

The HEH is composed of several independent rotors according to the heating profile required by the extrusion process.The HEH Technology is advantageously suitable for both isothermal heating cycles and for “taper”-type heating cycles at differentiated temperatures.

HEH offers a series of OPERATIONAL ADVANTAGES compared to existing technologies, also from an environmental point of view:

High heating speed and high energy conversion efficiency (up to 85%).
Higher energy efficiency also means a reduction of up to 50% of CO₂ emissions, and of atmospheric pollutants, if HEH technology completely replaces heating systems with gas burners.
More flexible, efficient and reliable control of the temperature distribution, thanks to the independent zones.
Depending on the local cost of energy, HEH will allow the manufacturer to reduce investments, save time and processing energy, and therefore reduce production costs.
No water cooling circuit required.
HEH is particularly aimed at those extrusion processes where the “taper” heating is required. It could be also chosen to replace existing induction heaters, or when the existing gas heating systems work at the limits of their capacity: in this case the pre-heating at gas and the final HEH “taper” prove to be a winning choice for increased productivity and quality of the extruded product obtained.

The HEH System is patented