Innovative Solutions in Induction Heating for Better Energy Efficiency:Presentation of ISIS Project

The Energy Climate Package is the EU response to the Global Warming Challenge.Induction heating processes can contribute to the energy saving goal:20%saving within 2020.European induction manufacturer already propose many efficient solutions at industrial scale.To improve induction devices for an always better energy efficiency,EDF R&D set up a French cooperative project called ISIS with a financial support of the French National Research Agency.Its objective is to promote induction heating as Best Available Technology(BAT)and to develop innovative solutions to increase its efficiency.The ISIS innovations concern the electroheat conversion of induction devices(auto-adaptive multi-coil power supply,low losses coils)and the recovering of fatally lost energy.This paper shows the mid-term results of this project.Firsts control algorithms were successfully tested on a 100 kW 3-coil power supply.A homogenization technique is proposed to model a multi-strand coil.A heat recovery test bench is build and equipped with a PFC control loop to fit with the production fluctuations.