The Study on the Induction Heating System: The Establishment of Analytical Model with Experimental Verification and the Phenomenological Study on the Process from Simulation Perspective

Abstract

Induction heating is frequently used in the metalworking industry to heat metals for hardening, soldering, brazing, tempering and annealing. Compare to traditional heating methods like flaming or oven, the induction heating is a unique process that generated heat within the workpiece by its electromagnetic and thermal material properties. But due to the complex nature of induction heating process, the use of simulation to analyze the induction heating process could become very advantageous both in design and economic aspects. In this paper, a coupled electromagnetic-thermal analytical model is established and verified by the experiments, including workpiece emissivity calibration. After the establishment of analytical model, phenomenological study on the effect of magnetic flux concentrator, current parameters were conducted. The FEM simulation helps to further understand the induction heating process, and to quantify the effect of input parameters. Therefore, it is possible to better optimize the process, and to develop new techniques.