Calculating heat generated by a resistance wire

privitmj

How can I calculate how much heat a resistance wire gives off when I energize it? For example, I have calculated the wattage per square inch of a heating element I plan on building. How do I know how much actual heat it will give off?

Thanks.

mrspeedybob

Think about it. Law of conservation of energy.

privitmj

Or I should say how do I design an electric coil that when energize will heat an object 5" away up to 350F?

mrspeedybob

That's an entirely different question.

It depends. How efficiently the heat is transfered from the coil to the object? What medium separates them? Where else can the heat energy go? What is the nature of the object? etc...

privitmj

The medium is air. I am basically trying to design my own infrared heating panel to heat an epoxy to 350F. I am not concerned about losses as I plan on over compensating with temperature i.e. designing a coil that will go to 600F or so. Basically i need to figure out how to calculate how much heat a coil has the ability to "give off". To go into more detail, I want to design a 16"x16" heating panel that has the ability to heat epoxy about 5" away to 350F. I plan on using a resistive heating wire and making my own coil. This should save me about $600 :OP

*I plan on using a nickel-chromium wire of lengh and resistance to be determined.