This application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. § 119(b) to German Application No. 10 2019 111 920.0, filed May 8, 2019, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.
Electrical heating devices have been used for many years for heating objects and/or media. In one common design of such an electrical heating device, the heating effect is achieved by the use of a heating wire or resistive wire, which is wound onto a coil form. The coil form is then inserted into a tubular metal jacket that is filled with a powder or granulate with good heat-conducting, but electrically insulating properties, particularly, magnesium oxide. The electrical contacting of the heating wire can be realized basically through sections of the heating wire extending out of the tubular metal jacket, but usually the alternative is chosen of providing connecting wires and extending these connecting wires out of the electrical heating device, so that the electrical contact to the connecting wires is realized within the tubular metal jacket.
In many applications, it is especially preferred to use press contacting, in which openings are provided in the coil form, into which one end section of the electrical heating element and the connecting wire is inserted, and these are then pressed together. In this way, a large surface area and relatively robust contact can be generated.
For current uses of electrical heating devices, two developments can be identified: on one hand, there is a continuing trend toward miniaturization. The installation space available for the heating devices continues to become smaller and smaller, which can make press contacting more and more difficult. At the same time, there are more and more low-voltage applications, for example, in the automotive industry, where only the onboard electrical system with voltages in the low two-digit voltage range is available for supplying power. However, the high current values needed for supplying the necessary power, which can be several amperes, then require connecting wires with large cross sections that must be housed in the coil form, which is at the same time subject to the trend toward smaller dimensions due to the desired miniaturization. This results in very small wall thicknesses of the coil form, at least in some sections, which makes the coil form easily breakable during the press contacting and can make the electrical heating device unusable.
The task of the invention is to disclose a method for manufacturing electrical heating devices, with which miniaturized heating devices for low-voltage applications can also be manufactured easily and with improved reliability for processing.
This task is achieved by a method for manufacturing an electrical heating device with the features of claim 1. Advantageous refinements of the method are the subject matter of the dependent claims.
The central lesson learned that forms the basis of the invention is that it is possible to shape the coil form in a targeted way through a compacting step, even if it is already housed in the tubular metal jacket of the electrical heating device. Because the cross-sectional shape of the coil form with windings is important for the temperature profile on the tubular metal jacket of the electrical heating device, particularly in the circumferential direction, it was previously always assumed that the shape of the coil form to be used and thus also the cross-sectional surface available for openings in the coil form should be defined by this desired temperature profile.
Accordingly, the method for manufacturing an electrical heating cartridge now usually has, as the first step, providing a coil form with a longitudinal axis, wherein the coil form is shaped so that cross-sectional surfaces of the coil form, to which the longitudinal axis is perpendicular, has a main axis, which corresponds to the largest diameter of the cross-sectional surface and a secondary axis, which corresponds to the smallest diameter of the cross-sectional surface, and wherein the coil form has at least one opening that extends parallel to the longitudinal axis and preferably passes through the coil form.
The longitudinal axis is here the axis of the coil form that extends parallel to the direction of the coil pitch of the normally wound heating element.
A diameter of the cross-sectional surface is to be understood here as a line that extends, starting from a point of the outermost edge of the cross-sectional surface through the geometric center of mass of the cross-sectional surface to an opposite point of the outermost edge of the cross-sectional surface. Accordingly, in this case, which is different from the diameter of a circular disk, the lengths of all diameters are generally not equal.
In a first variant of the method according to the invention, now at least one section of an electrical heating element is wound on the coil form along the longitudinal axis—that is, in a direction of the coil pitch extending parallel to the longitudinal axis—and, for providing a press contacting, one end section of the electrical heating element and one section of a connecting wire are inserted into the same opening extending parallel to the longitudinal axis in the coil form. For the sake of completeness, it should be noted that particularly the insertion of the connecting wire into the opening does not have to be performed at this point of the method, but instead can also be performed later, particularly when the coil form with windings is already housed in the tubular metal jacket.
In a second variant of the method according to the invention, the flexibility opened up by its application with regard to the cross section of the opening extending parallel to the longitudinal axis of the coil form is exploited in a different way by the coil form. In this variant, a coiled section of the electrical heating element is inserted into at least one opening passing through the coil form parallel to the longitudinal axis. Here, a miniaturization of the electrical heating device has the result that the heating wire coil is arranged in the interior of the coil form, which is possible due to the larger opening in the coil form that can be realized with the method according to the invention.
In another step of the method, the coil form prepared in this way—thus, for variant 1, the coil form with electrical heating element coiled on it at least in some sections and preferably the end section of the electrical heating element inserted in the opening extending parallel to the longitudinal axis in the coil form and the section of the connecting wire or, for variant 2, the coil form with the coiled section of the electrical heating element inserted into the at least one opening passing through the coil form parallel to the longitudinal axis—is inserted into the interior of a tubular metal jacket.
To guarantee the required electrical insulation of the heating conductor to the tubular metal jacket, to rule out empty volumes and to guarantee a stable arrangement of the components within the tubular metal jacket in both alternatives, the tubular metal jacket is then filled with an electrically insulating, heat-conductive powder or granulate.
Finally, the tubular metal jacket with coil form inserted therein and filled with electrically insulating, heat-conductive powder or granulate is compacted, wherein the compacting deforms the coil form so that the ratio between the length of the main axis and the length of the secondary axis and/or a change of the position of the main axis and secondary axis relative to each other is produced and either a press contact is produced between connecting wires and sections of the electrical heating element inserted into the opening passing through the coil form parallel to the longitudinal axis or the inner wall surface of the opening passing through the coil form parallel to the longitudinal axis is brought into contact with the coiled section of the electrical heating element inserted into the opening passing through the coil form parallel to the longitudinal axis.
Here, the desired shape of the coil form determines the desired change to the ratio of the length of the main and secondary axes or the position of the main and secondary axes relative to each other, which cannot usually be achieved with typical, purely isotropic compacting steps that rescale the cross-sectional surface by reducing the different dimensions by an identical factor.
The feature of changing the ratio of the length of the main and secondary axes and/or changing the position of the main axis and secondary axis relative to each other thus is synonymous to a desired deformation of the coil form being performed, in which deformation to different degrees is produced in different directions of the cross-sectional surface.
In practice, the compacting has at least partial steps, in which pressing forces of different strength are exerted in different spatial directions and the pressing method to be used for a given, desired configuration of the electrical heating device is adapted or optimized by someone skilled in the art with respect to directional distribution and strength of the pressing forces and possible division into different steps, in order to achieve the desired result.
It has proven especially advantageous when a coil form is provided whose cross-sectional surface is oval or rectangular.
To be able to optimally take advantage of the flexibility of the cross-sectional surface of the coil form, it is advantageous if a coil form is prepared in which the cross-sectional surface of at least one opening passing through the coil form parallel to the longitudinal axis deviates from the shape of a circular disk, because its possible diameter is always limited by the smallest dimension of the coil form.
If a coil form is provided, in which the cross section of at least one of the openings passing through the coil form parallel to the longitudinal axis follows the outer contour of the coil form at least in some sections, this can lead to a maximization of the usable cross-sectional surface of the openings, which is then usable for connecting wires with larger cross section.
In practice it has been shown that it can be important for successful compacting that the compacting is performed in multiple steps, for example, by a first compacting step with lower pressure and a second compacting step with higher pressure. In one especially preferred construction, in different compacting steps, the forces acting from different directions are varied, for example, in that a pre-compacting step is performed with isotropic pressing forces before a change in shape of the coil form, which changes the ratio of the main axis to the secondary axis, through an anisotropic compacting, or vice versa. It has been shown that such measures can significantly reduce waste.
For providing series manufacturing of electrical heating devices with the method according to the invention, it is recommended, as already mentioned, to try to optimize the pressing process also with different sequences of pressing steps with respect to the directional distribution and strength of different pressing forces. For example, apart from possible isotropic pre-compacting or post-compacting steps, quite different effects may be produced when pressing forces are applied either simultaneously or one after the other with the same directional distribution, e.g., for a rectangular cross section, first only force A on the long sides of the rectangle and then, in a second step, only force B on the short sides, or force A and force B are applied onto the respective sides simultaneously in one pressing step.
The foregoing summary, as well as the following detailed description of the invention, will be better understood when read in conjunction with the appended drawings. For the purpose of illustrating the invention, there are shown in the drawings embodiments which are presently preferred. It should be understood, however, that the invention is not limited to the precise arrangements and instrumentalities shown.
In the drawings:
In the opening 12 of the coil form 11, an end section 13a, 13b of the electrical heating element 13 designed as a heating conductor coiled on the coil form 11 is arranged together with a connecting wire 14.
At the bottom left and bottom right in
The coil form 11′, 11″ and the tubular metal jacket 15′, 15″ have been reshaped in the example at the bottom left to a rectangular shape by compacting or pressing processes, in the example at the bottom right to a circular shape, which automatically has the result that the ratio of the main axis H1′, H1″ to the secondary axis N1, N1″ also changes. In the example of the coil form 11′ shaped into a rectangle, it is also easy to see that some cases also result in a change to the position of the main axis H1, H1′ relative to the secondary axis N1, N1′, because there the angle between the axes determined according to the definition specified above has obviously changed.
The openings 12 of the original coil form 11 are closed by the compacting, so that an intimate press contact is produced between the end sections 13a′, 13b′ and 13a′ 13b on one side and the corresponding connecting wires 14′, 14″, respectively.
It is to be emphasized particularly that the dimensions of the coil forms 11′, 11″ after the compacting are such that the openings 12 in the coil form 11 could not be accommodated in them. As a consequence from the production following the method according to the invention, initially significantly larger openings can be provided in the coil form for inserting connecting wires or heating wire coils.
As can be seen in
When the coil form 11 with windings is then inserted into the tubular metal jacket 15 and the connecting wires 14 are inserted at least in some sections into the openings 12, which can take place while the coil form 11 is still arranged outside of the tubular metal jacket 15 or when the coil form 11 is already arranged inside the tubular metal jacket 15, the tubular metal jacket 15 is filled with electrically insulating, heat-conductive powder or granulate, e.g., magnesium oxide, and closed with an optional plug 19.
This configuration is then transformed into the electrical heating device 10″ by compacting the tubular metal jacket 15 with coil form 11 inserted therein and filled electrically insulating, heat-conductive powder or granulate, wherein, by the compacting, the coil form 11 is deformed so that a change of the ratio between the length of the main axis and the length of the secondary axis and/or a change of the position of the main axis and secondary axis relative to each other is produced and a press contact between connecting wires 14 and sections 13a, 13b of the electrical heating element 13 inserted into the openings 12 passing through the coil form 11 parallel to the longitudinal axis is produced.
As can be seen in
When the coil form 21 with windings is then inserted into the tubular metal jacket 25 and the connecting wires 24 are inserted at least in some sections into the openings 22, which can happen while the coil form 21 is still arranged outside the tubular metal jacket 25 or when the coil form 1 is already arranged inside the tubular metal jacket 25, the tubular metal jacket 25 is filled with electrically insulating, heat-conductive powder or granulate, e.g., magnesium oxide, and closed with an optional plug 29.
This configuration is then transformed into the electrical heating device 20″ by compacting the tubular metal jacket 25 with coil form 21 inserted therein and filled, electrically insulating, heat-conductive powder or granulate, wherein the coil form 21 is deformed by the compacting so that a change of the ratio between the length of the main axis and the length of the secondary axis and/or a change of the position of the main axis and secondary axis relative to each other is produced and a press contact between connecting wires 24 and sections 23a, 23b of the electrical heating element 23 inserted into the opening 22 passing through the coil form 21 parallel to the longitudinal axis is also produced.
The difference between the first variant of the invention according to the first two examples shown in
As can be seen in
Therefore, because the tubular metal jacket 35 used here does not have its own base, but instead a separate base plate 39b, it is also possible, in particular, to keep the coiled heating element 33 under tensile stress until it is inserted into the coil form 31 or to insert the coiled heating element 33 in the opening 32 of the coil form 31 only when this is already arranged inside the tubular metal jacket 35.
After arranging the separate base plate 39b in the tubular metal jacket 35, the electrically insulating, heat-conductive powder or granulate 36 can be filled and then the other end of the tubular metal jacket 35 can be closed with the optional plug 39.
This configuration is then transformed into the electrical heating device 30′ by compacting the tubular metal jacket 35 with coil form 31 inserted therein and filled, electrically insulating, heat-conductive powder or granulate 36, wherein by the compacting, the coil form 31 is deformed so that a change of the ratio between the length of the main axis and the length of the secondary axis and/or a change in the position of the main axis and secondary axis relative to each other is produced and the inner wall surface of the opening 32 passing through the coil form 31 parallel to the longitudinal axis is brought into contact with the coiled section of the electrical heating element 33 inserted into the opening 32 passing through the coil form 31 parallel to the longitudinal axis.
These examples are intended to demonstrate, in particular, another degree of freedom in the design and production of an electrical heating device according to the basic principles of the invention, because, through the dimensioning of the openings 42, 52, 62, 72 and locally thinner sections of the coil form, e.g., by grooves 67 formed at suitable positions, its behavior during the compacting processes can be influenced in a desired way. Apart from the sequence of the pressing processes, this parameter can also be used to optimize the properties of the electrical heating device produced according to the invention.
It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that changes could be made to the embodiments described above without departing from the broad inventive concept thereof. It is understood, therefore, that this invention is not limited to the particular embodiments disclosed, but it is intended to cover modifications within the spirit and scope of the present invention as defined by the appended claims.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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10 2019 111 920.0 | May 2019 | DE | national |
Number | Name | Date | Kind |
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6172345 | Dial | Jan 2001 | B1 |
20180235032 | Schlipf | Aug 2018 | A1 |
20190098704 | Schlipf | Mar 2019 | A1 |
Number | Date | Country |
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10 2010 006 356 | Aug 2011 | DE |
10 2018 101 195 | Aug 2018 | DE |
10 2018 104 897 | Sep 2018 | DE |
2203027 | Jun 2010 | EP |
Entry |
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Machine Translation of EP 2 203 027, Oct. 2023. (Year: 2323). |
Paperno et al, “A Tube-Core Orthogonal Fluxgate Operated in Fundamental Mode,” in IEEE Transactions on Magnetics, vol. 44, No. 11, pp. 4018-4021, Nov. 2008. (Year: 2008). |
GPTO Deutsches Patent- und Markenamt—Office Action dated May 12, 2020 issued in parallel pending German patent application No. 10 2019 111 920.0. |
Number | Date | Country | |
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20200359466 A1 | Nov 2020 | US |