Design of induction heating module for uniform cavity surface heating

Electromagnetic induction heating has many advantages such as fast heating, low energy consumption and reduced environmental pollution. Using induction heating for rapid tool heating is more economical and efficient than any of the current tool heating techniques. Previous studies using electromagnetic induction heating for rapid tool heating have indicated that the temperature uniformity on a cavity surface is not easy to be achieved regardless of using surface or insert-type induction heating. In this paper, a series of experiments were conducted to study the effectiveness of temperature uniformity on mold cavity surface for different induction heating coils. The parallel-type coil and magnetic flux concentrators were adopted to form the induction heating device. According to the results of heating experiments, the surface temperature of 10 mm thick hot work die steel (JIS SKD61) rose from 50°C to 150°C in 15 seconds and the temperature uniformity of the heated zone reached 94%-95%.