Band heaters, tubular heaters and strip heaters are products that are used in the plastics industry. These industrial heaters help soften polymers in order to shape it into various shapes and sizes and inevidably into the products we all use. Steel screw plug and flange heaters are typically used for lubricant oils, heavy and light oils, waxes as well as mildly corrosive liquids and low flow gas heating. Waxes, known for their non-corrosive qualities, use steel alloys in most applications. Steel is also known to have excellent heat transfer properties.



The sheath materials used can be steel, stainless steel, copper as well as exotic alloys such as inconel, hastalloy and titanium. Extremely corrosive environments such as salt water must use titanium alloys to avoid sheath breach.

The plastics industry is vast, covering many areas of industry from  transport, aerospace, electronics and transportation. Injection mould machines use nozzle heaters to help soften the polymers into final products. The use of thermocouples and precise digital controllers are also used to maintain target temperatures for each application. Some manufacturers use cartridge heaters that are inserted into steel or aluminum moulds that heat up large surface areas. Aluminum or steel are excellent alloys as they distribute heat at a much quicker rate than other materials. They are also fairly inexpensive and can have holes pierced to hold thermocouples (type j or k) that would maintain the operating temperature that is required. Bag forming machines often use cartrige heaters to help seal plastic bags and require precise heating so as not to melt the thin layers of plastic.