Experimental and Simulation Study on Inductance and Equivalent Resistance using Equivalent Circuit Model and Finite Element Method

Abstract

A zone-control induction heating (ZCIH) system heats workpieces using several induction coils. To design and control the ZCIH system, parameters such as the self/mutual inductance and self/mutual-equivalent resistance between coils should be obtained in advance. For this purpose, we have proposed a practical method called “multiport transformer model” to reduce the computation time in calculating these parameters. In this study, we compare the parametric result obtained by simulations using the multiport transformer model, with the result obtained through the finite element method (FEM) analysis results and experimental data to validate the computational accuracy of the multiport transformer model. The comparison result shows that the characteristics of the inductance and equivalent resistance calculated by the multiport transformer model are similar to those obtained from the FEM analysis and experimental result. This indicates that our proposed model can contribute to the design optimization and control of a ZCIH system.