Abstract:
This paper presents an experimental and
numerical investigation of heat distribution in an industrial
induction mould heating oven. The study aims to develop an
improved coil arrangement and oven design to generate uniform
heat distribution, while improving the thermal efficiency.
ANSOFT Maxwell software was used to simulate the
electromagnetic behaviour and the eddy currents in the
workpiece. The ANSOFT results were linked with ANSYS
transient thermal software to simulate the heat generation and
temperature distribution in the workpiece. An experimental
setup was developed to validate the simulations. ZVS2000
induction module was used in the experiments and the current
outputs of the module were calculated using Multisim software.
The simulation results showed a good agreement with the
experimental data. The experimental and simulation results
were used to study the cooling effect and the effect of using a flux
concentrator. The flux concentrator increased the oven overall
efficiency by 7.5 percent. The simulations were further extended
to analyze how the current frequency, coil design, and flux
material influence on the eddy current formation in the
workpiece. Based on the simulation results, an improved coil
design was proposed with higher thermal efficiency and uniform
temperature distribution.
