Heating performance improvement and field study of the induction cooker

Abstract

Magnetic induction heating is a common technique exploiting high frequency eddy current losses on metallic objects. In the past one to two decades, induction heating has been extended to the catering industry as induction cooker. Currently, the induction cooker draws more and more attentions as one of the popular kitchen appliances. This paper mainly investigates the magnetic field of induction cooker for improving its heating performance. Firstly, the magnetic field and heating performance of conventional induction cooker are analyzed. Furthermore, the problems associated with conventional induction cooker are identified. In order to overcome those disadvantages of traditional induction cooker, a novel coil format is proposed. Meanwhile, Finite Element Method is used to simulate and further analyze the behavior of the induction cooker. Finally, a prototype of the proposed induction cooker is built. The experimental results of conventional and the novel induction cooker are presented and compared. Both the simulation and experimental results indicate that the proposed solution can efficaciously improve the heating performance of conventional induction cooker.