Thermal analysis of a cooking pan with a power control induction system

Abstract Moving towards automatic control of the cooking process in a domestic environment requires, in addition to a deep knowledge of heat and mass transfer phenomena, optimized techniques for real-time data acquisition of temperature evolution in appliances, such as the pan. In this work, we investigated temporal thermal distributions on the cooking surface of a multilayer base pan using computational techniques based on the finite element method. The heating process was analysed using two heat power distributions generated by two different induction hobs. The induction hobs included a control system that ensured a certain temperature level depending on the type of food cooked. To obtain several parameters related to air-heat convection and thermal conductance between pan and glass, experimental tests were conducted. Several tests were carried out to measure the heat transferred to steaks during cooking. Regarding a steak cooking scenario, common daily situations were analysed, such as the size and the relative position of the meat. Under certain assumptions, the computational technique was able to evaluate the temporal thermal distribution on the cooking surface of the pan and guarantee homogeneous temperature during the whole cooking process. This study provides a numerical novel methodology to analyse a variety of situations during cooking saving costs and time.