Heating Element Coil Spacer for Thermal Expansion
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing support structures for coiled heating elements fail to maintain collinearity, concentricity, and centering during thermal expansion, leading to uneven temperature distribution and reduced element life due to stress-induced deformation and gravity-induced misalignment.
Innovation Solution
A spacer system with interlocking columns around the circumference of the coil, allowing for radial movement within a channel to accommodate expansion while maintaining collinearity and centering, and featuring mating components to ensure concentricity and guide the coil's position.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If slots are provided in ceramic spacers to allow expansion and contraction, then the heating element can accommodate thermal expansion, but collinearity and concentricity of the coils cannot be maintained
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an intermediary mechanism (the spacer assembly with protrusions and recesses) that mediates between the heating element's need to expand and the requirement to maintain precision. The protrusions engage with recesses in a way that permits radial expansion while constraining lateral movement, thus maintaining collinearity and concentricity during thermal cycling.
Solution Approach 2:
The spacer assembly is designed with dynamic characteristics, allowing it to move radially inward and outward to accommodate thermal expansion while maintaining its function of preserving collinearity and concentricity. This dynamic design enables the system to adapt to changing thermal conditions without compromising structural precision.
2Stability of the object's composition
If protrusions are attached to heating element coils to block them from passing through spacers, then material accumulation in lower parts is mitigated, but temperature uniformity deteriorates and failure risk increases
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of attaching protrusions to the heating element coils (the traditional approach), the patent inverts the approach by providing protrusions on the spacers themselves. This reversal allows the spacers to actively engage with and support the coils, preventing material accumulation while maintaining temperature uniformity and reducing failure risk.
3Device complexity
If no constraining mechanism is provided, then the assembly is simple, but coil deformation worsens over time leading to decreased element life
Solution Approach 1:
The spacer assembly is designed to be self-aligning through its protrusion-recess engagement mechanism. The gravity-induced downward force on the coil turns causes the spacers to automatically engage with the coils, providing continuous support and preventing deformation without requiring external active control or complex adjustment mechanisms.
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
The spacer system allows the coil to expand and contract freely while maintaining collinearity, concentricity, and centering, reducing stress-induced deformation and ensuring uniform temperature distribution and extended element life.
Implementation Method 1
maintains one or more of the collinearity, concentricity and centering of the heating element coil during thermal expansion of the heating element
Implementation Method 2
the vertical support column moves slideably within the vertical channel, and wherein an increase in a length of the heating element coil upon heating is accommodated by a radially outward movement of the spacers
Data Source
Figure 1A~1B
Figure 2~3
Figure 4~5
AI summary
Spacer for a vertical support structure of a heating element coil includes a mating feature including complimentary components on first opposing sides of the spacer, a cavity, open to second opposing sides of the spacer, and an extension, offset from an axis intersecting the mating features, the extension including a pocket sized to fit an individual loop of the heating element coil. The spacer can be incorporated into a support structure for a heating element coil interlocking adjacent loops of the coil so that they are retained in a collinear and concentric arrangement while allowing the loops of the coil to move freely inward and outward from the central axis in unison.