Thermal Analysis of Induction Furnace

A. A. Bhat*1, S. Agarwal1, D. Sujish1, B. Muralidharan1, B.P. Reddy2, G.Padmakumar1 and K.K.Rajan1

1
Fast Reactor Technology Group, 2Chemistry Group
Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, Kalpakkam-603102, India.
*Corresponding author: PPES, FRTG, IGCAR, Kalpakkam, 603102; [email protected]

Abstract: Induction heating furnaces are 1.1 Validation model

employed for vacuum distillation process to
recover and consolidate heavy metals after In this section induction heating interface
electrorefining operation. Induction heating algorithm of COMSOL was validated with
furnaces of suitable heating rates are required to experimental literature data [1]. The induction
be developed for this purpose. Hence it is heating system consists of stainless steel work-
planned to set up a mock-up induction furnace piece the upper part of which is placed inside the
which will simulate the conditions to be realized induction coil consisting of six irregularly spaced
in actual induction heated vacuum distillation windings made of copper. A thermocouple is
furnace. The mock-up induction furnace will be spot welded at 5 mm distance from the top of the
used to demonstrate the melting of copper. work-piece to ensure good thermal contact for
Preliminary results of the mock-up furnace are accurate temperature measurement.. The power
aimed at understanding the induction heating is supplied at 10 kHz. The coil voltage is 77 V
process and control which will be useful for the and the time of heating is 25s. The geometry and
design and operation of actual vacuum mesh networks for this system are created using
distillation furnace. The mock-up induction COMSOL and is shown in Figure 8. The
furnace has been modeled in COMSOL numerical temperature evolution at the
Multiphysics. Prior to that the Induction Heating thermocouple location obtained from the
Interface algorithm under the Heat Transfer simulation is compared with the experimental
Module of COMSOL Multiphysics was temperature history in Figure 2. Good agreement
validated with the experimental data reported in is found between the experimental results and
the literature. This paper describes the thermal numerical simulation. This validates the
and electromagnetic modeling of induction induction heating algorithm used for mock-up
furnace and discusses the numerical results induction furnace.
obtained. These results will be compared with
the experimental results which will be obtained
during the operation of mock up facility.

Keywords: Electromagnetic/induction heating,

Induction melting, vacuum distillation furnace.

1. Introduction

The high-temperature vacuum distillation

furnace is able to melt and consolidate the heavy
metals, distill the volatile metals, be operable in
argon containment box and heat reasonably fast
while being capable of holding temperature. The
furnace is induction heated to ensure equipment
durability, long term availability and
compatibility with metal vapours. The process is
carried out in vacuum in order to eliminate the
concerns about metal oxidation and purity during
melting.
Figure 1: The 2D axisymmetric model (with mesh) of
the induction heating set up.
Figure 2: Comparison of experimental and simulated
temperatures at thermocouple location.

1.2 Mock-up induction furnace Figure 1: Schematic model of mock-up induction

furnace
The mock-up induction furnace consists of .
furnace liner (susceptor), crucible, induction coil, The two dimensional axisymmetric
copper-liner, graphite felt insulation and alumina COMSOL model of the furnace is used to study
refractory. These furnace components are the induction heating in the mock-up furnace.
enclosed in stainless steel vacuum vessel. Figure
1 shows the schematic layout of the equipment. 2. Use of COMSOL Multiphysics
Induction heating is achieved by supplying AC
power at 2-8 kHz to the coil. The furnace liner 2.1 Numerical model
made of high density graphite encloses the
graphite crucible containing solid copper pellets. The induction heating process in mock-up
The induction coil is a 13 turn coil made of solid furnace is a complex process where different
copper bar with rectangular cross section [2]. physical fields i.e., electromagnetic and heat
The furnace liner essentially gets coupled with transfer phenomena are strongly coupled due to
the magnetic field generated by the induction inter related nature of physical properties [3, 4].
coil, heats up and indirectly heats the crucible by The coupling is shown in Figure 2.
radiation heat transfer. The melting of copper
takes place in crucible. The copper liner prevents
the coupling of stainless steel vessel with
magnetic flux lines. The carbon felt insulation is
used to prevent the heat loss to the coil and other
parts. The melting is carried out under vacuum
and the contents in the crucible (copper) need to
be heated to 1500 oC in 2-5 hours. These
conditions are sufficient for melting process.
After melting, the crucible is cooled to form the
metal ingot which is then removed. The
induction coil is not water cooled due to safety
considerations. The coil is only cooled by
radiation to the walls of vacuum vessel which Figure 2: coupling of different fields in induction
can be cooled by water. heating.
The magnetic field generated by the coil creates
induced currents in the furnace liner. These S. No Parameter Value
induced currents heat the furnace liner by joule
heating. The crucible gets heated by the radiation 1 Frequency 8 kHz
from the furnace liner and reaches the 2 Current 400 A
temperature where melting of the copper charge
takes place. Once the susceptor temperature 3 Height of copper 30 mm
increases its electric, magnetic and thermal in the crucible (for 3.5 kg)
properties change, varying the values of induced
currents and temperature gradients. Hence non- 4 Time of heating 7200 s (2 hours)
linear properties of the materials need to be
5 Time step for 60 s
considered to model the induction heating
process in the furnace. The melting part of this computation
process has not been modeled in this study.
Table 1: Important parameters used in simulation
2.2 Geometry
2.3 Main features of the model.
A simplified 2D axisymmetric model shown in
Figure 3 was built in COMSOL. The model has
For the mock up induction furnace it is possible
the same dimensions as that of the mock- up
to approximate it as a 2D axisymmetric geometry
induction furnace. The crucible has the diameter
due to the cylindrical symmetry and ignoring the
of 265 mm and that the coil inner diameter is
power feed-throughs which supply power to the
about 400mm. The important parameters used in
coil. The pre-defined frequency transient,
the model are given in Table 1.
induction heating, electromagnetic heating mode
in the heat transfer module is used for the model.
It is a one step approach where electromagnetism
and heat transfer are solved simultaneously to
give the magnetic fields and temperature
distribution. The induction heating simulations
use quasi static, time harmonic induction
currents application mode to solve for magnetic
vector potential, the predefined couplings then
use the calculated volumetric heating as a source
term in the energy equation for a transient heat
transfer simulation [5]. The model has different
domains air, crucible, air, coil, susceptor,
vacuum etc.

2.4 Governing equations and boundary

conditions:
The electromagnetic field is governed by
Maxwell’s equations .These equations are solved
in COMSOL Multiphysics using the following
formulation:

𝑗𝜔𝜎 − 𝜔2 𝜖0 𝜖𝑟 𝐴 + ∇ × (𝜇0−1 𝜇𝑟−1 𝐵) = 𝐽𝒆

𝐵 =∇×𝐴

Figure 3: 2D-axisymmetric COMSOL Multiphysics where A is the magnetic vector potential ,B is

model of mock-up induction furnace. magnetic flux density, Je is external current
density, ω is the frequency, ϵr is the relative
permeability and ϵ0 is the permittivity of
vacuum,
These equations are solved in entire
computational domain (including copper charge,
coil, crucible, susceptor insulation). The input
data for the coil is 400 A external current with a
working frequency of 8 kHz. In the outer
boundaries of computational domain the
magnetic insulation boundary condition is used,
which imposes that the normal component of
magnetic field has to be zero. The transient heat
transfer is governed by Fourier equation which is
solved in COMSOL using the following
formulation.

𝜕𝑇
𝜌𝑐 = ∇ ∙ (𝑘∇𝑇) + 𝑄
𝜕𝑡

Where T is the absolute temperature, ρ is the

density, c is the specific heat capacity, k is the
thermal conductivity and Q is the energy
generated in the material per unit volume and
time (heat source term). This equation is solved
in solid computational domains of the model. For
the heat transfer boundary conditions, all the Figure 4: Magnetic flux density inside the furnace.
initial temperatures are set to 30oC.All the inside
free surfaces in the model are allowed to .
participate in surface to surface radiation. The
outer vessel wall surfaces are allowed to
participate in surface to ambient radiation and
convective cooling using suitable values of heat
transfer coefficients [6] for top bottom and
vertical surfaces.

3. Numerical Results

Figure 4 shows the streamline representation of

magnetic field inside the mock-up induction
furnace at 8 kHz. It is seen from the figure that
the copper liner absorbs the magnetic field thus
shields the stainless steel vessel from the coil
magnetic field which otherwise would lead to
undesirable heating of the vessel. The result is in
agreement with the theory.
Figure 5 shows the three-dimensional
temperature distribution in the mock up
induction furnace after two hours. The hottest
regions are the susceptor liner and the crucible
enclosed inside the susceptor. It is because the
susceptor is coupled to the coil where maximum
heat generation takes place. The susceptor in turn
heats up the crucible by radiation. . Figure 5: 3D Temperature distribution in mock-up
induction furnace after 2 hours
Figure 6: 2D Temperature distribution in mock-up
induction furnace after 2 hours

Figure 6 shows the surface plot displaying two-

dimensional temperature distribution in the mock
up furnace after two hours. The maximum
temperature in the susceptor is 1545 oC while
crucible and charge maximum temperatures are
around 1530 oC. The coil maximum temperature
is 590 oC which is higher than the acceptable
value (400 oC). This suggests that the coil needs
cooling to limit its temperature to permissible
value.
The transient temperature plots which are
important for process operation and control have
also been plotted. Figure 7 displays the
temperature evolution with time at the indicated
positions on the susceptor and the crucible
respectively. The blue curve gives the
temperature of the crucible and the red one gives Figure 7: Temperature rise with time at the indicated
the temperature of the susceptor. The points on the susceptor and crucible respectively.
temperature of crucible is seen to be 10-15 oC
lesser than the susceptor. .
4. Conclusions

This paper shows how to solve the induction

heating problem in the induction furnace with
complex geometry. The results of this study have
shown that the temperature of the crucible rises
to 1500 oC in 2 hours of heating time at
frequency of 8 kHz and current of 400 A. Hence
these conditions are favorable for melting of
copper (melting point = 1085 °C) in the crucible.
The studies reveal that copper-liner is effective
in reducing the electromagnetic coupling
between the coil and the vessel and thus prevents
vessel from getting heated up by this effect.

5. References.

1. Chaboudez, C., Clain, S., Glardon, R., Mari,

D., Rappaz, J., and Swierkosz, M., 1997.
“Numerical modeling in induction heating for
axisymmetric geometries”. Magnetics, IEEE
Transactions on, 33(1), p. 739–745. 0018-9464.

2. Mock-up cathode processor,

PPES/FRTG/IGCAR and Conceptual Design of
Cathode Processor, IGC/FRTG-CG
/99519/DN/3002/R-B

3. S. Zinn and S.L. Semiatin, Elements of

Induction Heating: Design, Control, and
Applications, ASM International, Metals Park,
Ohio, 1988

4. Rudnev, V., Loveless, D., Cook, R., and

Black, M.,. Handbook of Induction Heating.
Inductoheat,Inc. 2003

5. COMSOL Multiphysics, User Manual and

Model Library.

6. Yunus a . Cengel, Heat and Mass Transfer, A

Practical Approach, .tmh’ 3rd, 2007.

6. Acknowledgements

The authors thank to the Homi Bhaba

National Institute (HBNI) and Department of
Atomic Energy, Government of India for their
support.