Investigation of Induction Heating for Sheet Metal with Moving Induction Coil

The efficiency of induction heating is highly dependent on the coil geometry and the air gap between the coil and the workpiece, therefore the aim of this research is to experimentally evaluate the efficiency and uniformity of temperature distribution in induction heating, utilizing an inductor coil, movable in three axes. The experiment is conducted under the condition that the inductor coil is not tailored for the specific workpiece, giving it a higher flexibility compared to the conventional application of induction heating. To achieve this objective, a downscaled test bench was designed, employing a CNC machine for execution. In addition, in this study, a second test bench was built to establish an analytical approach in determining the parameter field between power, air gap and efficiency. The steady-state conditions in this test bench allowed the closure of the energy balances to be calculated analytically, allowing immediate validation of the accuracy of the results. This parameter field was utilized to evaluate the outcomes of the moving inductor experiments.