Heatable Media Line With Mixed-Strand Connector Heating
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing prefabricated heatable media lines face challenges in efficiently managing varying heat requirements along their length, particularly at connectors, due to fixed heating element designs that are costly and inefficient in terms of material usage and heat distribution.
Innovation Solution
The use of mixed strands as partial heating elements, composed of stranded individual wires made from different materials, allows for adjustable specific resistance by varying the materials' selection, enabling flexible heat input along the media line and connectors while minimizing material usage and maintaining a small cross-sectional area.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of manufacture
If fixed heating element designs are used, then manufacturing simplicity is maintained, but heat distribution efficiency and material usage cost-effectiveness deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The heating element is divided into multiple individual wires that can be stranded together in different configurations. This segmentation allows the specific resistance to be adjusted by varying the number, material, and arrangement of individual wires, enabling optimized heat distribution for different sections of the media line while maintaining a standardized overall structure that is easy to manufacture.
Solution Approach 2:
The heating element uses composite construction with multiple wires of different materials (e.g., copper, nickel-chromium alloys) stranded together. This composite approach allows tuning of the specific resistance by selecting appropriate material combinations and proportions, achieving both manufacturing efficiency and optimized heat distribution characteristics.
2Productivity
If multiple heating elements are used to meet varying heat requirements, then heat distribution efficiency improves, but device complexity and material costs increase
Solution Approach 1:
The heating element design allows dynamic adjustment of specific resistance through different stranding configurations of individual wires. This enables a single heating element to adapt to varying heat requirements along the media line by changing its electrical properties, eliminating the need for multiple fixed heating elements with different resistance values.
Solution Approach 2:
The specific resistance of the heating element is made variable by changing the material composition and stranding configuration of individual wires. This parameter change allows one heating element to provide different heating outputs at different locations along the media line, replacing the need for multiple heating elements while maintaining manufacturing simplicity.
3Loss of substance
If heating element cross-sectional area is minimized, then material usage and costs are reduced, but heat transfer capability deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The heating element uses composite wire construction where individual wires of different materials are stranded together. This allows achieving the required heat transfer capability through optimized material selection and arrangement while maintaining a small overall cross-sectional area, thus reducing material usage and costs without sacrificing heating performance.
Solution Approach 2:
Different sections of the heating element have locally optimized properties through varied stranding configurations. High-heat-transfer sections use materials and arrangements optimized for heat conduction, while other sections use configurations optimized for electrical resistance, allowing the overall element to achieve both small cross-sectional area and sufficient heat transfer capability.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This approach allows for efficient heat management across different temperature zones with reduced material costs and improved heat transfer, enabling effective defrosting and heating without the need for multiple heating elements, thus optimizing the heatable media line's performance and cost-effectiveness.
Implementation Method 1
at least one of the partial heating elements is designed as a mixed strand which has a number of stranded individual wires consisting of at least two different materials with different specific resistances
Data Source
Figure 1~4
Figure 5~10
Figure 11~14
AI summary
The invention relates to a pre-fabricated heatable media line (1) comprising at least one pipe- and/or hose-type media line (2), at least one line connector (3,4) located on the end of said line and at least one pre-fabricated heating element (5), the pre-fabricated heating element (5) comprising at least two heating element portions (50,51,58,59) connected in at least one circuit and at least one of the heating element portions (50,51) extends over at least part of the at least one line connector (3,4) and the at least one pipe- and/or hose-type media line (2) in order to heat the at least one part of the line connector (3,4) and the at least one pipe- and/or hose-type media line (2). In said pre-fabricated heatable media line, at least one of the heating element portions (50,51,58,59) is designed as a mixed stranded wire having a number of stranded individual wires (151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157) consisting of at least two different materials.