Electrical induction heating

Electrical induction heating is a complex combination of electromagnetic, heat transfer and metallurgical phenomena.

Alternating current in a conductor has a non-uniform current distribution with the maximum on the surface. The non-uniform current distribution with alternating current is known as the skin effect. Approximately 86% of the power is concentrated in the surface layer of the conductor. The surface layer is called the penetration or skin depth, , and can be derived from the Maxwell equations

where

You can see from this equation that the skin depth depends on the conductor properties and the frequency of the current in the conductor. When it comes to a simulation, the skin depth should also be considered when selecting the size of the mesh.