Affiliations: [a] Department of Industrial Engineering, University of
Padova, Padova, Italy | [b] Whirlpool R&D, Cassinetta di Biandronno, Italy | [c] Inova Lab s.r.l., Padova, Italy | Leibniz University of Hannover, Hannover, Germany | University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy | University of Padua, Padua, Italy
Abstract: Induction cooktops are more and more used in the houses with
increasing market in comparison with gas cooktops and resistance or halogen
cooktops. The main reasons for this are the higher energy efficiency, the low
heating times, the controllability of the power delivered to the pot, the
safety with reference to the low temperature of the glass, the superior
cleanability. The main core of the Induction Hob (IH) is constituted by the
power electronics board and the inductor which are strictly correlated in the
sense that the frequency converter (the frequency operating range is
20–100 kHz) must be designed in order to correctly resonate with the coil in
order to achieve its optimum efficiency over the broadest possible operation
range; this means that the inductor must be designed in order to fulfill the
Zero Voltage switching condition of the frequency converter over the whole
range of operation. These requirements are much more important in the quasi
resonant converters for the limitations in the controllability of soft switch
mode of solid state switching. In the paper a design procedure based on a fully
3D FEM model of the inductor coupled with the frequency converter circuit is
presented. The simulation results will be discussed and compared with
experimental data.
Keywords: Induction cooktops, finite element analysis, quasi-resonant converter
