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Design, Fabrication and Testing of Two Different Laboratory Prototypes of

CSI-based Induction Heating Units

Article in Journal of The Institution of Engineers (India) Series B · September 2013

DOI: 10.1007/s40031-012-0026-8

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Design, Fabrication and Testing of Two
Different Laboratory Prototypes of CSI-
based Induction Heating Units

M. Roy & M. Sengupta

Journal of The Institution of

Engineers (India): Series B
Electrical, Electronics &
Telecommunication and Computer
Engineering

ISSN 2250-2106

J. Inst. Eng. India Ser. B

DOI 10.1007/s40031-012-0026-8

1 23
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1 23
 Author's personal copy
J. Inst. Eng. India Ser. B
DOI 10.1007/s40031-012-0026-8

ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTION

Design, Fabrication and Testing of Two Different Laboratory

Prototypes of CSI-based Induction Heating Units
M. Roy • M. Sengupta

Received: 17 August 2012 / Accepted: 19 October 2012

Ó The Institution of Engineers (India) 2013

Abstract Induction heating is a non-contact heating Introduction

process which became popular due to its energy efficiency.
Current source inverter (CSI) based induction heating units Induction heating is a non-contact heating process. It uses
are commonly used in the industry. Most of these CSIs are high frequency electricity to heat materials that are electri-
thyristor based, since thyristors of higher ratings are easily cally conductive using the principle of eddy current losses.
available. These being load commutated apparatus a start- Since it is a non-contact type heating process, it does not
up circuit is needed to initiate commutation. In this paper contaminate the material being heated. It is also very efficient
the design and fabrication of two laboratory prototypes since the heat is actually generated inside the ‘work-piece’,
have been presented. The first one, a SCR-based CSI fed thereby reducing chances of ‘leakage’ of heat. This can be
controlled induction heating unit (IHU), has been tested contrasted with other heating methods where heat is gener-
with two different types of start-up procedures. Thereafter ated with a separate heating element, a part of which is then
the fabrication and performance of another IGBT-based utilised to heat-up the work-piece. In such cases (like resis-
CSI is compared with the thyristor-based CSI for a 2 kW, tance heating as is found in a traditional electric toaster), a
10 kHz application. These two types of CSIs are fully sizeable fraction of the heat is un-utilised, lowering the
fabricated in laboratory along with the IHU. Performance heating efficiency. For these reasons, induction heating
analysis and simulation of two different CSIs has been has found wide applications in the industry. In almost all
done by using SequelGUI2. The triggering pulses for the cases, a current source inverter (CSI) is used as the power
inverter devices (for both CSI devices as well as auxilliary converter and a capacitor is connected in parallel with the
thyristor of start-up circuit) have been generated and induction coil (parallel resonant circuit [1]) in the induction
closed-loop control has been done in FPGA platform built heating applications. Thyristor-based CSI is most common
around an Altera make cyclone EPIC12Q240C processor for (i) the low cost and (ii) easy availability of higher rated
which can be programmed using Quartus II software. Close thyristors. These inverters have to operate at leading power
agreement between simulated and experimental results factor, since thyristors specifically have significant com-
highlight the accuracy of the experimental work. mutation time (tq) [2]. An auxilliary circuit has to be con-
nected for initiating commutation of the inverter [3]. On the
Keywords Induction heating  Thyristor-based CSI  other hand IGBTs easily operate at higher frequencies. An
IGBT-based CSI  Start-up methods  IGBT-based CSI can be operated at almost unity power
Surface heat treatment factor thereby relieving the capacitive VArs otherwise
associated with the thyristorised version [4]. In the present
work nominal frequency of 10 kHz is chosen with a surface
heat treatment application in mind. The billet samples are
(i) a hollow cast steel cylinder (of dimensions radiusinner =
M. Roy (&)  M. Sengupta
55 mm, radiusouter = 65 mm, height = 150 mm) and (ii) a
Department Electrical Engineering, Bengal Engineering and
Science University, Shibpur, Howrah 711103, WB, India solid cast steel cylinder (of dimensions radius = 50 mm,
e-mail: [email protected] height = 150 mm).

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Induction heating is the process of heating an electri- In this work, first, the performance of a thyristor-based
cally conducting object (usually a metal) by electromag- CSI fed controlled induction heating unit (IHU) with two
netic induction. The elementary mechanism behind this is different type start-up procedure is presented. Then it is
the flow of induced currents in a conductive material, due compared with the performance of another IGBT-based
to emf induced in it, when it is placed in an alternating CSI for a 2 kW, 10 kHz IHU application. All the above
magnetic field (Faraday’s law). These currents, which are have been design, developed and tested in the laboratory.
treated as unwanted Eddy currents in most applications, Interestingly the IGBT-based set-up does not require sep-
ultimately heat up the material obeying Joule’s law (Eddy arate start-up arrangement (Table 1).
current heating). At the front-end of the inverter there is a 3-phase variac
The conversion process of electrical power for a typical followed by a 3-phase diode bridge rectifier and a buck-
induction heating unit is well known [1, 5]. The dimensions chopper [9] and the complete circuit diagram is shown in
of the coil and work-piece used in the present work are Fig. 2.
shown in the Fig. 1. It is obvious that higher the frequency,
higher is the induced emf and hence the Eddy current Operating Principle of a Thyristorised CSI
magnitude. However, higher frequency has the problem of
lesser flux penetrating into the ‘job’ to be heated and hence A CSI consisting of thyristors is shown in Fig. 3a, where
heating effects getting concentrated on the ‘skin’ of the the induction heating coil is represented as equivalent
‘job’. This is good for surface heat treatment applications series R–L load with a suitable capacitor connected across
but is not so for melting applications. Typical frequencies it (to set up parallel LC resonance; natural resonance
for melting applications are around 500 Hz while for sur-
face hardening/heat treatment applications it is around
Table 1 Key experimental results for thyristor-based CSI fed IHU
5 kHz or above [6, 7].
Quantity Meter reading

Resonant frequency (fr) 7.8 kHz

Power Supplies for Induction Heating Application CSI operating frequency (fs) 8 kHz
Coil current (IL) 22 A
An induction heating power supply/converter is either Load voltage across coil (VL) 21 V
based on CSI or voltage source inverter configuration. For
Peak inverse voltage across device (T1) 30 V
well known reasons [1, 8], a CSI configuration with a
Current through dc-link inductor (Id) 4A
parallel capacitor across the load is preferred.

Fig. 1 Dimensions of coil and ‘job’/work-piece

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Fig. 2 The complete circuit for the power converter

frequency of xr ¼ p1ffiffiffiffi
LC
ffi). The thyristors being load com- lagging the load voltage by
mutated devices, have to be operated at leading power  
factor. The fundamental frequency component of voltage is 1 XL
b ¼ tan ¼ 86 : ð2Þ
in phase with the fundamental frequency component of R
current if switching frequency (xs) is equal to natural Coil impedance at 10 kHz
resonance frequency (xr). However, to get desired leading
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
power factor angle (Fig. 3b), the inverter must be operated
Z ¼ R2 þ XL2 ¼ 0:7923 X: ð3Þ
above resonance frequency (xs [ xr). A large value of
inductor (Ld) is connected in the link (20 mH) and hence Therefore load r.m.s. voltage (VL) = 152.5 V and then the
dc-link current is almost constant (id = Id). In this inverter capacitor current is (from the phasor diagram shown in
after every 180° duration any diagonal pair of thyristors Fig. 3c)
commutate together. The inverter output current iL0 is
ideally of square-wave shape (or trapezoidal). Let, at some IC ¼ IL sin b þ ðIL cos bÞ tan / ¼ 201:6 A: ð4Þ
instant T1 and T2 be conducting. At the negative going zero
The value of capacitor that is required
crossing instant of the load terminal current (iL0 ) the other
two thyristors (T3, T4) are to be turned on, when the load IC 201:6
voltage itself falls across the previously conducting thy- C¼ ¼ ¼ 21 lF:
2  p  f  VL 2  p  10000  152:5
ristors (T1, T2). This helps in commutation of these out-
ð5Þ
going thyristors (T1, T2). The reverse voltage appears
across them for a time interval of c/xs, which should be Inverter output current (also called as inverter terminal
sufficiently larger than the turn-off time (tq) of the thyristor current at some places in this paper) is
that is being used [10, 11]. As detailed later, an IGBT- pffiffiffi 
based CSI may be used to get the almost unity power factor 0 2p
I L ¼ ðIL cos bÞ sec /  ¼ 18 A ð6Þ
operation. 4

Choice of Devices and Capacitors Start-Up of Thyristorised CSI

To provide sufficient commutating voltage, assuming In case of the present CSI, the load must be in resonance
tq = 10 ls, at a switching frequency of 10 kHz, the net with capacitor which was previously charged (pre-
load terminal current must be advanced from the load charged) for the inverter operation. This is essential for
voltage by / = 36° (Fig. 3b). The value of capacitor that is initiating commutation of one diagonal pair of the thy-
required for commutation can be calculated (for the 36° ristors. With the pre-charged start-up capacitor dumping
leading of load terminal current, R ¼ 0:054 X; L ¼ 12:6 lH its charge onto the parallel resonant load, an oscillating
and 2 kW induction heating coil [12]) as below. Consid- voltage is established which at its negative transition will
ering the fundamental component alone, the induction coil turn off the appropriate pair of inverter devices to set up
current (Fig. 3c) is the first commutation cycle. After that, the inverter oper-
rffiffiffi ation is initiated [2]. So, a start-up circuit has to be con-
P nected along with the arrangement for pre-charging the
IL ¼ ¼ 192:5 A ð1Þ
R capacitor.

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Fig. 3 a Circuit diagram of CSI and induction coil (R–L) load with parallel capacitor. b Conceptual plot of output voltage, current and voltage
across the thyristor of parallel resonant circuit consisting of parallel branches of series R–L with C. c Phasor diagram (at fundamental frequency)

Another way to start-up may be by controlling the dc Start-Up Using an Auxilliary Network
link current [3]. If dc-link current reference is made to
ramp-up slowly from zero (through control on buck- Start-up should be performed in such a way that voltage
chopper) then inverter can start-up smoothly. When the and current for the converter and for the load rapidly reach
reference dc-link current starts from zero, the actual steady-state. The circuit diagram of the overall power
instantaneous dc-link current will obviously be discontin- converter with start-up circuit is shown in the Fig. 2 and
uous in nature (average value tracks reference though). start-up circuit is separately shown in the Fig. 4a. The start-
This phenomenon is utilised to initiate commutation. up circuit consists of a thyristor, a small inductor (6 lH)
Simulation of two different types of start-up and experi- and capacitor (21 lF) selected as per design [12]. If C1 =
mental implementation of same for the induction heating Cload (in hardware circuit C1 ^ Cload) and L1 = Lcoil/2 then
application has been presented here. the influence of Lcoil can be neglected in the rapid

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Fig. 4 a Start-up circuit for CSI, b SEQUEL simulation circuit for capacitor voltage and trigger pulse of the auxilliary thyristor (ch1:
start-up of CSI, c simulated waveform of oscillating voltage across probe ratio 1:1, Y-scale: 5 V/div, ch2: probe ratio 1:1, Y-scale: 2 V/
the load capacitor (upper one, scale in right side) and start-up pulse div and t-scale: 200 ls/div)
(lower one, scale in left side) , d experimental waveform of oscillating

Fig. 5 a Simulated waveforms of load voltage build-up (upper trace, scales visible on the right) with increase of dc-link current (lower trace,
scales visible on the left). b Oscilloscope plot of experimental load voltage and dc-link current reference at 9.5 kHz

oscillations. which now take place between Cload, C1, L1 A single small pulse has been used as a start-up pulse for
with angular frequency. the auxilliary thyristor (Tx1). When the thyristor (Tx1) is
1 turned-on an LC resonance sets in. The performance of this
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ¼ 2 x circuit has been simulated using SEQUEL. The circuit for
Cload =2  Lcoil =2
SEQUEL simulation of the start-up function is shown in
The capacitor voltage increase approximately following Fig. 4b.
the function V = V0(1 - cos2xt). This voltage turns off It may be noted that initially when CSI thyristors are
the thyristors in one of the inverter diagonals. The capac- triggered after one trigger cycle all of them will start
itor is charged to some voltage (say, 20 V here) and then conduction. But since it is a current source, current will not
disconnected from the auxilliary dc power supply (Vdc). increase beyond some value even if the above means that

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voltage as mentioned above and this will help to commu-

tate T3 and T4. The CSI operation cycle now repeats.
Voltage development in the load capacitor has been shown
in Fig. 4d. The set-up was experimentally run at identical
conditions as specified by the simulation. The practically
obtained waveform therefor are found to be is good
agreement with the simulation results.

Start-Up for CSI by Controlling dc Link Current

An alternative start-up procedure was also developed. This

was done in an attempt to eliminate the additional circuity
associated with the auxilliary start-up network. Also it is
interesting to note that the presence of the buck-chopper
(for current control) at the input of the CSI gives rise to this
Fig. 6 Circuit diagram of the IGBT based current source inverter possibility. As mentioned earlier, if dc-link current refer-
with induction coil load and parallel capacitor ence is made to ramp-up slowly from zero (through control
on buck-chopper) then the inverter can start-up smoothly.
the bus is shorted. This also means that after C1 is charged- When the reference dc-link current starts from zero, the
up to the steady-state crest value of the output voltage i.e., actual instantaneous dc-link current will obviously be dis-
20 V (case of reduced voltage at start), the switch SW1 is continuous in nature. In that case thyristor pair (diagonal)
opened after some time say, 1 ms. Thereafter, an LC res- which is not triggered at that instant gets turned-off (dc-
onance is set up to charge the load capacitor to some link current zero implies current below the holding current)

Fig. 7 Oscilloscope plot of experimental waveforms for a load voltage (vL) and overall load current (i/L), b load voltage (vL) and capacitor
current (iC), c load voltage (vL) and coil current (iL), d load voltage (vL) and voltage across T1 at 7.8 kHz and 6 A dc-link current

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Fig. 8 Oscilloscope plot of experimental waveforms for a load voltage (vL) and overall load current (i/L), b load voltage (vL) and capacitor
current (iC), c load voltage (vL) and coil current (iL), d load voltage (vL) and voltage across T1 at 8 kHz and 4 A dc-link current

Table 2 Set-up details

to initiate the awaited commutation. Though the current is
discontinuous for first few cycles, the voltage developed Quantity Value or rating
across the load (in presence of load capacitor) will be dc-link inductor (Ld) 20 mH
sufficient for sustaining the commutation of the appropriate Coil inductance (Lcoil) 12.6 lH
pair progressively after the first commutation as mentioned Coil resistance (Rcoil) 54 mX
above. The other pair which must be on, turns-ON in Capacitor across coil (C) 21 lF
presence of the gate trigger pulses just after dc-link current Thyristor SPSI 35
recovers from zero. The implementation has been done IGBT SKM75GB123D
using an FPGA based controller platform. First the simu-
Diode DSEI60-12A
lation for this scheme has been done and the simulated
waveform is presented in Fig. 5a. It shows that with the
increase of the dc-link current the load voltage builds up.
Figure 5b shows the experimental waveform of the load
Table 3 Key experimental result for IGBT-based CSI fed IHU
voltage build-up in the coil with the increase of the dc-link
current reference. The results are once again in good Quantity Meter reading
agreement. Resonant frequency (fr) 7.8 kHz
CSI operating frequency (fs) 7.8 kHz
Operation and Testing of IGBT Based CSI
Coil current (IL) 30 A
Load voltage across coil (VL) 27 V
Operation of the IGBT-based CSI is mostly similar to the
Peak inverse voltage across device (T1) 38 V
operation of the thyristor-based CSI save the fact that no
Current through dc-link inductor (Id) 6A
start-up circuit is required. The circuit diagram is shown in

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the Fig. 6. The thyristors of the previous inverter circuit are each other. Figure 7b shows the experimental waveforms
to be replaced by IGBTs with series-diodes for obvious of the load voltage (vL) in channel one and capacitor
requirement of reverse voltage blocking. The IGBTs can be current (iC) in channel two. Figure 7c shows the exper-
turned off by applying negative gate voltage. So IGBT- imental waveform of the load voltage (vL) and current
based inverter need not operate in leading power factor. (iL) in the coil. Current sensor (ratio 20:1) is used for
The advantages of IGBT-based CSI over thyristor-based sensing the current. Figure 7d shows the experimental
CSI are (i) operation at unity power factor is possible in waveform of the load voltage (vL) and voltage across the
this case giving us (ii) a higher efficiency and (iii) there is device (T1).
no need of an auxilliary circuit for start-up [13]. A current On comparing the waveforms of IGBT-based CSI with
source can never be open-circuited. This implies that some that of the thyristor-based CSI the most notable feature is
overlap between two IGBTs of the same leg during that it is possible to get unity power factor operation using
change-over and hence some overlap between the gate IGBTs. In case of thyristorised CSI when the reverse
pulses of the IGBTs of the same leg is needed to ensure voltage appears across the thyristor then only the thyristor
that one can inherently prevent the open-circuit. The per- turned off and hence only leading power factor operation is
formance of the inverter has been simulated using possible. The reverse voltage across them for a time
SEQUEL software. A prototype has been designed and interval of c/xs, which should be sufficiently large then the
fabricated for the IGBT-based CSI also and experimental turn off time tq of the thyristor that is being used (10 ls in
results have been presented below. The tests were con- case of thyristor-SPSI35). On the other hand this is not
ducted at a dc-link current of 6 A. required for the IGBT-based CSI. A comparison of the
Figure 7a shows the experimental waveforms of the voltage across the devices in the two cases (Fig. 8d lower
load voltage (vL) in channel 1 and inverter output current trace, Fig. 7d lower trace) reveals the same clearly. Though
(iL0 ) in channel 2, and they are clearly in phase with the nominal frequency was chosen as 10 kHz, finally the

Fig. 9 Photograph of laboratory prototypes of a thyristor-based CSI with coil and capacitor bank, b dc-link inductor and thyristors, c induction
coil and capacitor bank, d IGBT based converter and its driver circuit

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set is operating at around 8 kHz for the present billet References

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Kolkata and his colleagues Mr. A. K. Kolay and Mr. B. Roy 15. S. Roy, Finite element based design, fabrication and tasting of A
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authors also acknowledge the support received from the Department 16. http://www.ee.iitb.ac.in/sequel/
of EE, BESU, Shibpur, Howrah towards this work. 17. http://www.altera.com/products/devkits/altera/kit-cyc3.html

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