2013 IEEE 1st International Conference on Condition Assessment Techniques in Electrical Systems

Dual Zone Industrial Induction Heater using

MOSFET based High Frequency Hybrid Resonant
Converter
Pradip Kumar Sadhu

Ananyo Bhattacharya

Professor: Department of Electrical Engg.

Indian School of Mines (under MHRD, Govt of India)
Dhanbad, Jharkhand, India
e-mail: pradip_sadhu@yahoo.co.in

Junior Research Fellow: Deptt. of Electrical Engg.

Indian School of Mines (under MHRD, Govt of India)
Dhanbad, Jharkhand, India
e-mail: bhattacharya.ananyo@gmail.com

Nitai Pal
Associate Professor: Department of Electrical Engg.
Indian School of Mines (under MHRD, Govt of India)
Dhanbad, Jharkhand, India
e-mail: nitai_pal@rediffmail.com

AbstractIn this paper a converter is described where both

series and parallel resonant circuits are used. To minimize the
losses, switching instant is chosen at zero current crossover
instant. The converter scheme described in this paper consists of
four MOSFETs in Hbridge configuration. It is used for
industrial induction heating purposes comprising of dual zone
heating. The switching frequency lies in the range of 30 kHz to
100 kHz. Maximum efficiency is achieved for operating
frequency of 66.66 kHz. Earlier voltage controlled devices like
IGBTs, MCTs were tested and found that the system was
working perfectly. For above mentioned frequency, IGBT was
the better option considering conduction losses. But the cost of
power MOSFETs is lower than the same power rating IGBTs
and MCTs. So, by considering the overall cost of the dual zone
industrial induction heater, slightly greater conduction losses of
MOSFETs can be accepted. For the system efficiency
optimization, different control strategies are discussed. The two
zones have different pipe diameters and output power levels. This
paper presents a new approach of dual zone operation depending
on the demand of hot fluid flow in the industrial application. It is
saving the energy cost when it is operating in under load
condition. The circuit is simulated with PSPICE and simulation
results are specified at the end.

transferred to the secondary object at a very rapid rate, faster

than any direct heating method. Also the induction-heating
system is extremely rugged because of absence of red-hot
temperature in the induction coil resulting in no deterioration or
aging of coil [5, 6]. Besides, here heat is transferred by
induction process. So no conduction loss is there during
transfer of heat from source to the secondary object [6].It is
possible to get an efficiency of about 92 % to 96% for each
heating system. The induction heated system was built and
tested and simulated separately.

KeywordsDual zone, MOSFET; Hybrid Resonant; Induction

Heating; ZCS; H-Bridge, Non-metallic pipe

It has fast turn-on delay time, typically, 150 ns and fast

turn-off delay time, typically 600 ns for an MOSFET
(SF100CB 100) of 1 kV, 100A.

I.

INTRODUCTION

It is easy to use MOSFETs in induction-heating technique

in industrial application [1, 2]. Induction heating technique in
industrial applications is becoming a strong alternative to direct
heating. As compared to other direct heating methods, the
proposed technique of induction heating is more convenient
and cost effective [3, 4 & 17]. Here the heat energy is

978-1-4799-0083-1/13/$31.00 2013 IEEE

II.

CHOICE OF MOSFET AS SUITABLE

SEMICONDUCTOR SWITCH

Wherever in the present scheme, the MOSFETs are chosen

over other semiconductor switches (like Thyristors, BJTs,
IGBTs etc.) because of the following favourable conditions.
It is mainly used in high switching frequency
applications and when used as a switch in built surge
current protection is available.
At high switching frequencies it is optimal for low
voltage operation.

Switching operations can be done by voltage pulse

triggering. So no need of commutation circuit is there
[2].

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2013 IEEE 1st International Conference on Condition Assessment Techniques in Electrical Systems
III.

THE PROPOSED SCHEME

The high frequency hybrid resonant converter comprises of

four semiconductor switches (MOSFETs) operating in the
range of 30 kHz to 100 kHz [7]. In the converter both series
and parallel resonant circuits are combined and the switching is
done at zero current cross over point, which is called zero
current switching (ZCS) [8, 12]. The converter with two full
bridges operating in parallel is shown in Fig. 1.

Fig. 3. Arrangement of the induction coil wound pipe

Fig. 1. Hybrid resonant converter system for dual zone heating

It consists of two parallel resonant circuits with two heating

zones [9]. Two induction coil wound non-metallic pipes are
employed in the two zones, one with smaller diameter and
other with larger diameter as shown in Fig.2.

Discussion on different control strategies is given. It reveals

that the best possible system efficiency occurs when switching
is made approximately at the zero voltage crossing of the
parallel resonant circuit [11, 12, 13]. With the converter
incorporated in the heating system, the total system efficiency
(i.e. from the input supply mains to the load) of approximately
92% to 96% has been achieved when the operating frequency
is chosen at 66.66 kHz.
Fig. 4 depicts an H-bridge hybrid resonant converter with
load impedance. The load may be in series or in parallel. Here
the full resonant current must pass through the switches which
increase the switch ON losses. Also, there will be reactive
power consumption. In case of a parallel load ZP, switch ON
losses would be lower but turn-on / turn-off losses would be
more as the switching instant is at high voltage and current.

Fig. 4. Converter with resonant load

Fig. 2. Physical arrangememt of resonant converter for two heating zone

The non-metallic pipes consist of metallic packages inside

them. It is used for fluid heating purpose as shown in Fig.3.
The two zones have diameters and output power levels of 10
cm for 5000 W and 18 cm for 10000 W respectively. When
fluid flow rate is less, the pipe with smaller diameter is chosen
for heating purpose [10, 18]. When the flow rate is greater, the
pipe with larger diameter is used. At urgent situation when
demand of the hot fluid is more, dual zone operation can be
implemented.

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Therefore, combining series and parallel circuit, a hybrid

converter can be used which will result in lower switching loss.
Fig. 5 shows a resonant converter system for single heating
zone. Basically, the operation depends on the interaction
between two resonant circuits where the energy is transferred
from the series resonant circuit (consisting of CR and L1) to the
parallel resonant circuit (consisting of CR, RL and LR) [12 &
17].

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2013 IEEE 1st International Conference on Condition Assessment Techniques in Electrical Systems
single switch configuration saves semiconductor switches and
driver circuits. In the single switch configuration, the current
from L1 is only transferred to the parallel resonant circuit once
per period of the current in the parallel resonant circuit [12, 15
& 16]. It means that a displacement in the DC value of the
parallel resonant current occurs and it is equal to the mean
value of the current through L1. A DC component results in
lower system efficiency because it only produces ohmic losses
and will not produce any eddy current in the secondary metallic
object which is incorporated in non-metallic pipe line.
Therefore, the single switch configuration is not selected.
Fig. 5. Hybrid resonant converter system for one heating zone

Here LR , RL and CR represent the equivalent impedance of

the induction coil and its secondary object referred to primary.
When one of the MOSFET pairs S1, S4 or S2, S3 is turned on,
resonant current IL1 flows through L1 and CR. CR starts
charging itself. The circuit components are chosen such that it
forms an underdamped circuit. To reduce the switching loss,
switching is done at current zero instant. At some current zero
point, MOSFETs are switched off. After that the series circuit
is disconnected. So now CR starts discharging through LR and
RL. RL represents the equivalent resistance for the eddy current
path i.e. RL= (Internal resistance of coil+ reflected resistance of
secondary path in the primary).
In the actual physical system for single heating zone, the
high frequency resonant current flows through the induction
coil and produces a high frequency alternating magnetic field.
This alternating magnetic flux links with the secondary object
and induces eddy emfs in the object. As a result, eddy current
flows through the material. This (Ieddy)2 RL is the output heat in
the induction heating system. The current waveforms in the
series and parallel circuit are shown in Fig. 6.

Fig. 7. Modified half bridge and single switch configuration

The half-bridge configuration is considered to give no savings

in comparison with the full-bridge configuration because two
extra capacitors are needed in the former case. The half-bridge
configuration will reduce the voltage across the parallel
resonant circuit. A larger CR is needed. Larger resonant current
IR will flow which will cause lower efficiency due to greater
switching loss and therefore, it is disadvantageous.
The full-bridge configuration shown in Fig.5 is best suited
due to its high efficiency and reasonable costs compared to the
single-switch and half-bridge configurations. It is therefore
chosen for this application.
V.

SWITCH CONFIGURATION

It is required to use minimum number of switches. Lesser

number of switches results in lower price and a lower circuit
complexity. In a dual zone heating system, it is reasonable to
use some of the switches for energy transfer to both zones.
Then savings in both drivers and switches can be possible. The
zones are represented by the components LR and RL.
The current carrying capacity of the four main switches
(S1, S2, S3, S4) have to be larger such that delivered energy will
be same as in Fig. 8, where eight switches are used. As it is
very unlikely to run both zones at the same time, it still
becomes necessary to over dimension the parallel resonant
circuit components. The chosen circuit of full bridge hybrid
inverter is as depicted in Fig. 8.
Fig. 6. Wave shapes of currents(IL1 and IR) in the series and parallel circuits

In the figure IL1 is the current through the inductor L1 and IR

is the current through the capacitor CR. IL1 flows only during
the series resonant condition and IR flows both during the series
and parallel resonant condition.
IV.

BRIDGE CONFIGURATION

The selection of a bridge configuration is a big task. Two

alternative bridge configurations to the full bridge
configuration as shown in Fig. 4 and 5 are shown in Fig. 7. The

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Fig. 8. Full bridge circuit for two heating range

VI.

PARALLEL RESONANT CIRCUIT

The dimension of the parallel resonant circuit components

are selected by the formulas, which are valid at the natural
resonant frequency i.e. at infinite Q-value. The Q-value

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2013 IEEE 1st International Conference on Condition Assessment Techniques in Electrical Systems
represents the relation between the active and reactive energy
in the system.
A. Resonant frequency
Initial test on the system revealed that efficiency was
increased by 1.2 %, when operating frequency was increased
from 30 kHz to 100 kHz [7]. Considering this and the
obtainable speed of control circuitry, the resonant frequency
was selected at 66.66 kHz. The fact that pets like dogs can hear
upto 35 kHz also goes in favour of this choice.
B. DC Link
To make the system cost effective DC link capacitor is
not used. This arrangement also helps to avoid problems
caused by high currents at start up. The mean power related to
the power at maximum DC link voltage is expressed as:

P = Pmax 4 / 2

voltage (100 V, for an example) is within a certain limit and the

currents are safe.
B. Transfer of energy to the parallel resonant circuit
To maintain the energy efficiency of the system the
instance for the transfer of energy to the parallel resonant
circuit is important. Initial tests reveal that the best instance for
starting the energy transfer is the instant when the voltage UCR
across the resonant circuit is zero. It results in the increased
efficiency from 92 % to 96 %. The tests were done with
reduced voltage. Here the maximum DC-link voltage was
270V instead of 565V under normal conditions. The efficiency
was defined as the ratio between the thermal energy consumed
by the load and the input electrical energy. Then the heat
radiation losses and losses due to steam were included. The
converter efficiency is thus higher than that of shown in
measurements.
C. Test of the system
A single heating zone system was built and tested. Fig. 9,
10 and 11 depict the DC-link current IL1, the parallel resonant
current IR and the voltage across the parallel resonant capacitor
UCR respectively.

(1)

This equation is taken from [19].

C. Rectifier bridge
In this proposed scheme fast recovery diodes are used in the
rectifier bridge. It prevents the DC link current IL1 from going
negative and results in more trouble in zero current switching.
This is necessary due to the missing dc link capacitor.
D. DC link coil L1
The size of L1 is chosen such that the natural resonant
frequency of the series resonant circuit is higher than that of the
parallel resonant circuit in order to make switching at zero
current instant. It is found that the efficiency of the system
depends on the size of L1 .It also depends on the instance where
the energy is fed into the parallel resonant circuit. Therefore L1
is constructed such that the inductance can be varied and its
optimum value has been found experimentally.

Fig. 9. Current through LR and RL 565 V, 5 A/ div

E. Switches and freewheeling diodes

Due to requirement of high switching frequency and less
complexity in the drive circuitry, MOSFET was chosen for this
application but the ON-state drop voltage is slightly greater
than other semiconductor switches. The freewheeling diodes
only have to carry the reverse recovery current of the rectifier
diodes and as fast recovery diodes are used in the rectifier
bridge power capability demand of these diodes are very little.
The diodes have to withstand the same reverse voltage as the
MOSFETs.

Fig. 10. Parallel resonant current at 565 V , 10 A / div

VII. CONTROL
This section describes about the safety measures that must
be taken during startup. It also describes about the method of
controlling the system concerning transfer of energy to the
parallel resonant circuit.
A. Startup
A safe startup is ensured by measuring the DC link
voltage [18]. The system is started after checking that the

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Fig. 11. Parallel resonant voltage at 565 V over rectifier bridge

From Fig. 10, it is found that the currents in the parallel

resonant circuit are very sinusoidal and contain only a small

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2013 IEEE 1st International Conference on Condition Assessment Techniques in Electrical Systems
amount of high harmonics. This is an advantage regarding the
efficiency because system optimization was done considering
the fundamental and higher harmonics would probably cause a
reduction in the efficiency because of the associated skin
effects and could also cause problems regarding radiation of
electromagnetic energy. The DC-link current IL1 and parallel
resonant capacitor voltage UCR are also satisfactory as they
seem to have little harmonic content. Optimization of the DClink current was done such as to make it as wide as possible
and still ensuring zero current switching. Making IL1 as wide as
possible results in lesser conduction loss and increased
efficiency.
Fig. 14. Coil current & coil voltage using MOSFET by PSPICE software

IX.

Fig. 12. Full wave rectified voltage and DC link current IL1

D. Power factor
The power factor of the system was found to be 0.993. Fig.
12 depicts the DC-link current IL1 and the voltage across the
rectifier bridge. From the figure it can be seen that the current
peaks of IL1 follow that of the voltage which results in a high
power factor.
E. Efficiency
The system efficiency of single heating zone with the
smaller diameter pipe is reached upto 92 %. However, the
system efficiency of dual heating zone may be reached upto
96%.

In this paper, a high frequency hybrid resonant converter

for a dual zone industrial induction heater has been described
and test results for one zone have been given. With single
heating zone the efficiency of the system reached 92 % and it is
found that with both zones operating, the efficiency may reach
up to 96%. The increase in system efficiency is caused by
proper optimization of the energy transfer between the DC-link
and the parallel resonant circuit and the system designing to
minimize higher harmonic content in the currents. The system
also has a high power factor of 0.993. This will be of great
importance in the future. It is beneficial for the end users as this
means a lower consumption of energy.
X.

REFERENCES
[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

Fig. 13. Circuit arrangement for simulation in PSPICE.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Authors are thankful to the UNIVERSITY GRANTS

COMMISSION, Bahadurshah Zafar Marg, New Delhi, India
for granting financial support under Major Research Project
entitled Simulation of high-frequency mirror inverter for
energy efficient induction heated cooking oven using PSPICE
and also grateful to the Under Secretary and Joint Secretary of
UGC, India for their active co-operation.

VIII. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

With the circuit configuration and parameters selected as
above, the circuit has been simulated using PSPICE software
and the waveform obtained across the coil is shown in Fig.13
& Fig.14.

CONCLUSION

Pradip Kumar Sadhu, Nitai Pal and Atanu Bandyopadhyay Choice of

Semiconductor Switches for Energy Efficient Induction Heated Pipe-line
using H. F. Mirror Inverter Proceedings of the International
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2013 IEEE 1st International Conference on Condition Assessment Techniques in Electrical Systems

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BIOGRAPHIES
Pradip Kumar Sadhu received his Bachelor, PostGraduate and Ph.D.(Engineering) degrees in 1997,
1999 and 2002 respectively in Electrical Engg. from
Jadavpur University, West Bengal, India. Currently,
he is working as a Professor in Electrical Engineering
Department of Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad,
India. He has total experience of 22 years in teaching
and industry. He has four Patents and two patents are
under process. He has several journal and conference
publications in national and international level. Also,
he has published one book and one book chapter. He
is principal investigator of few Govt. funded projects.
He has guided a large no. of Doctoral Candidates and
M.Tech students. His current areas of interest are
power electronics applications, application of high
frequency converter, energy efficient devices, energy
efficient drives, computer aided power system
analysis, condition monitoring, lighting and
communication systems for underground coal mines.
Ananyo Bhattacharya completed his B.Tech. Degrees
in Electrical Engineering from
West Bengal
University of Technology (WBUT) and M. Tech.
Degrees in Electrical Engineering from University of
Calcutta, West Bengal, India in 2010 and 2012
respectively. He is presently pursuing Ph.D.
Programme at the Department of Electrical
Engineering, Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad
826004, India. His research interests include induction
heating, power electronics and power systems.
Nitai Pal received his B.Tech. and M.Tech. degrees in
Electrical Engineering from University of Calcutta,
West Bengal, India. He received his Ph.D.
(Engineering) from Jadavpur University, West
Bengal, India. He has total experience of 15 years in
teaching. He is currently working as an Associate
Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering,
Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad, Jharkhand, India.
He has several publications in Journals, International
& National conferences. Also, he has published one
book and one book chapter. He has filled two patents
which are under process. He is the Investigator of
Govt funded project. A few students are pursuing
doctoral study under him. Power electronics
application, application of high frequency converters,
energy efficient devices, energy efficient drives,
lighting and communication systems for underground
coal mines etc.

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