Simulation O F Inductive Heating Simulation of Inductive Heating

Induction heating is a process whereby heat is generated in electrically conducting materials through ohmic losses from eddy currents induced by varying electromagnetic fields. This phenomenon can be described by a heat transfer equation and an eddy current equation. These two equations are coupled because most of the material properties are temperature-dependent. In this report a description is given of an integrated simulation environment for the solution of these equations. The Eddy/Heat software package bas been constructed using the high level language PDL (Package Designer Language) and the package generator M a m m y. The database structure, the mathematical formulas and the numerical algorithms are all described in P D L. A library interface allows a symbolic reference to existing (Fortran) facilities. The PDL formulation is compiled by Mammy, a Philips' proprietary package generator, resulting in the source code of a Fortran package. This code is linked with auxiliary libraries. The use of PDL in the definition phase has proved to be a very flexible way to structure the complex combinatorics of several specialized options and to handle redefinition of the algorithms , because time consuming items like adapting datastructures are handled via PDL. This also resulted in an enormous reduction in development time required. Velocity effects have been included in the heat transfer equation, using special upwind techniques to deal with the singularly perturbed character of the equation. External radiation and convection effects can be imposed as boundary conditions. Current conservation in eddy current regions can also be enforced. Effects around Curie temperature transitions can be studied. In axisymmetry a special transformed formulation was used for the eddy current equation to avoid inaccuracies around the Z-axis.