Analytical and Numerical Methods for Calculation of Induction and Conduction Heating Systems

Abstract

This chapter is about the analytical and numerical methods that have been successfully applied for modeling induction and direct resistance heating processes. In Sect. 5.1, calculation of induction heating system is presented by applying the equivalent magnetic circuit method. Analytical methods are extensively described in the previous chapters and briefly summarized in the Sect. 5.2 of this chapter. The Sect. 5.3 presents a simple procedure to solve coupled EM and Thermal induction heating problem by means of the finite difference method in 1D axis-symmetric domain. The procedure is fully detailed and can be easily implemented in a code. Typical results produced by a commercial code based on 1D finite difference method are shown in Sect. 5.4. Volume integral methods have been also successfully used in coupled electromagnetic and thermal calculations: these numerical techniques are detailed in the Sect. 5.5. Calculation of parameters of direct resistance heating systems and the importance of the feeding circuit parameters are dealt with in Sect. 5.6 by applying analytical solutions while in Sect. 5.7 the calculation is carried out by resorting again to the 1D finite difference method. Finite element method is the numerical technique most applied in commercial software dedicated to electromagnetic design. Finite element models are nowadays extensively used in electro thermal applications and a short description focused on practical use of finite element is presented in the closing section of the book.