Tim Boyd Induction Furnace

Sep. 28, 2012

Here are latest developments

I have two guys in San Diego who want to subcontract with me on this.

The power supply for the furnace can be built with IGBT s from a 60 Hz line supply single phase or 3 phase 50 KWatt. We can also think of how we might adapt this to a large solar array and batteries

using dc and just skip the 60 Hz inverter.

The power supply would be made in a way that deviates from standard commercial design that emphases a small metal box cabinet.

To make these systems simple and easy to service we want the power supply to be large, with large aluminum plates as heat sinks for the transistors. The aluminum plates would be water cooled and the primary winding of the furnace would be the standard large coil of copper tubing and be water cooled

The warm cooling water could be stored as domestic hot water supply

We need to design this using FEA s from the beginning. This will guide us on the crucible and primary coil configuration, the inductance of the primary, the coupling of power to the charge as it heats and melts

The supply would be designed so that the drive frequency could be adjusted to best couple to the charge from solid scrap to melt, this frequency would be from 10s of kilohertz down to about 1 KHz

The FEA s s will help in design of transistor heat sink

Can you add me to a blanket license for solidworks 2012 . I need a licence for FEA I suggest COMSOL AC and multi physics for a few weeks to do the electromagnetic and strees thermal design

Thanks, I will do video call when you are available

I am looking at billet, hot rolling, and cold rolling equipment appropriate for the 50 Kwatt scale