A Combined Experimental-Numerical Investigation of the Thermal Efficiency of the Vessel in Domestic Induction Systems

Belén Bonet-Sánchez,Begoña Calvo,Carlos Franco,Jorge Grasa,Iulen Cabeza-Gil,Miguel A Martínez,Sergio Llorente

doi:10.3390/math10050802

Abstract

New studies are emerging to reduce energy costs and become a more sustainable society. One of the processes where the greatest savings can be made is in cooking, due to its large-scale global use. In this vein, this study aims to analyse the influence of the vessel in the thermal efficiency at the cooking process. For that purpose, a numerical model of a cooking vessel was designed and validated with three different experimental heating tests. One of the key factors of the process is the contact between the vessel and the glass, therefore, two new approaches to model the thermal contact between the vessel and the cooktop were explored. Once the numerical models were calibrated, a full factorial analysis was performed to quantify the influence of the key parameters of the vessel in the heating process during cooking (thermal conductivity, specific heat, convection and radiation coefficients, and vessel concavity). Two of the most influential parameters in the heating process are the conductivity and the thermal contact between the vessel and the glass. Higher cooking efficiency can be achieved both with a low thermal conductivity vessel and with a high concavity, i.e., increasing the isolation between the vessel and the glass.

Highlights

Domestic cooking appliances have significantly evolved towards a more user-friendly and efficient use during the last decades due to the importance of cooking in our daily life [1]
The Würtembergische Metallwarenfabrik (WMF) and Schulte pans were developed in Model I because the steel plate is flat (Figure 2) and there is no layer of air to be modelled
We obtained a convective coefficient of 8.0 W/m2K, similar to Sanz-Serrano et al [11], which obtained a convective coefficient of 9.5 W/m2K using the difference finite method

Summary

Introduction

Domestic cooking appliances have significantly evolved towards a more user-friendly and efficient use during the last decades due to the importance of cooking in our daily life [1]. One of the most important elements of the cooking process is the vessel; its influence on the energy efficiency has not yet been widely discussed in literature, in contrast to other domestic appliances such as gas burners and induction systems [2–4]. There are few studies about the vessel influence during cooking related to thermal efficiency and bottom temperature homogenisation. Hannani et al [6] analysed the thermal efficiency of some cookings pots using a combined experimental and neural network method. Ayata et al [8] trained a neural network to find a solution to the nonregular distribution of temperature using the most efficient thickness distribution, and Karunanithy and Shafer [9] studied the efficiency of different saucepans on various cooktops and agreed that the surface finish of the pan base significantly affects the cooking efficiency

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion