Most heating elements use Nichrome 80/20 (80% nickel, 20% chromium) wire, ribbon, or strip. Nichrome 80/20 is an ideal material, because it has relatively high resistance and forms an adherent layer of chromium oxide when it is heated for the first time. Material beneath this layer will not oxidize, preventing the wire from breaking or burning out.
Advantage:
1)The heating resistance of Iron-Chrome-Aluminium(Fe-Cr-Al) series metal alloy grows as the increment of the composition of Chrome and Aluminium.
(2)It has superior anti-oxidization, anti-sulfur and anti-cementite.
(3)It also has series of advantages as small density density, high surface load ,high resistivity , high service temperature, long life-span and low price etc..
Therefore it is widely used in heating elements of heaters.
Resistance wire: may be wire or ribbon, straight or coiled. Used in common items such as toasters and hair dryers, furnaces for industrial heating, floor heating, roof heating, pathway heating to melt snow, dryers, etc. Most common wires are from the following classes
Kanthal (FeCrAl) wires
Nichrome 80/20 wire and strip
Cupronickel (CuNi) alloys for low temperature heating
Most models use coils of wire that have a high electric resistivity and heat rapidly with an electric current. A fan (usually powered by a universal motor) blows ambient air past the hot coils resulting in heated air effective for drying. The heating element in most hairdryers is a bare, coiled nichrome wire that is wrapped around insulating mica heating boards. Nichrome wire is used in heating elements, because of two important properties: it is a poor conductor of electricity and it does not oxidize when heated.