Last updated on February 9th, 2024 at 08:03 pm

Electric heating elements have a wide range of uses and applications in many processing and industrial manufacturing industries, and one of the most common heating elements within this field are over-the-side heaters.

Electric heating elements such as these ones aid the manufacturing and industrial processes. This is primarily by maintaining substances (mostly liquids) at the correct temperature needed for efficient processing. For instance, one of the largest industries to use these heating elements is chemical and petroleum industries, which have turned to electric heating elements, including over-the-side immersion heaters, primarily to reduce the overall cost of smaller operations with limited budgets.

The oil and gas industry may be one of the largest to utilize heating elements; however, there are various other industrial applications.  As well, over-the-side electric immersion heaters play a large part in these applications. Over-the-side heaters are ideal for smaller applications in industrial processes, since they are economical in size and practical in their interchangeability.

Electric heating elements take two primary forms: direct immersion heaters and indirect immersion heaters. Direct immersion heaters, as the name implies, immerse the main heating element directly into the liquid. Indirect immersion heaters conduct heat through radiation or convection.

Therefore, over-the-side heaters are considered direct immersion heaters, since the sheath (or terminal housing) that covers the heating element is inserted directly into the desired substance or liquid. In this way, over-the-side immersion heaters work best with specific substances: water, solvents, salts, oils and acids.

Over-the-side heaters work best with these substances because the project manager does not have to be concerned with fluid viscosity or flow. Instead they focus solely on the temperature of the given substance. Coated in a waterproof substance, over-the-side heaters are deposited in a tank or drum with the heating element either along the side of the vessel or at the bottom (again, as the name implies).

This style of installation makes it very easy for other operations to be conducted even while the substance is being treated by the heating element. These heaters are usually designed to be compatible with nearly any standard tank, and can very easily be customized to fit a non-standardized tank. This is one of the main features that makes over-the-side immersion heaters popular from an economic (that is, inexpensive) standpoint for project managers. The interchangeability of the heating element means less customization, and therefore less overhead cost.

Each over-the-side immersion heater is also usually equipped with an external temperature probe and a digital controller. This makes it a much simpler task to bring large containers of liquid to the right temperature. As well as maintaining this temperature with minimal effort or concern about compromising the substance or the process. There are several main advantages to using over-the-side immersion heaters, as discussed above.

First, the straightforward installation process of the heating elements offer a flexible option for project managers who need the heating element for different applications.

Second, the heating elements offer an inexpensive option for those with smaller projects and projected uses.

Finally, over-the-side immersion heaters are ideal because they can be used interchangeably with multiple substances and fluids. Overall, over-the-side immersion heaters offer an economic and practical option for many projects in the petroleum and chemical industries.