MECATRONICS - REM 2016
June 15-17, 2016
Practical Applications of Small Induction Heater
Hideo Tomita*, Akihiro Nomoto, Akihiro Ando, Daiki Miyamura, Rei Takasaka
Abstract— Small induction heating technology is recent trend
for home appliances and industry applications. This paper covers
advanced practical applications of small induction heater, as the
example bonding methods in building materials and mechanical
parts, food cooking devices and superheated steamer.
Keywords— Induction heating, Interior construction, food
processing, Superheated steamer, Dismantlable adhesion,
I.
Nowadays, induction heating (IH for short in this paper)
devices and their applications are progressing rapidly [1]. This
paper covers advanced applications of small induction heater
that is recent trending for home appliances and industry
applications. Then a specification of induction coil (IH-coil for
short) for IH is especially important. The IH-coil will be able to
classify roughly two types as follows. 1) IH-coil consists of a
hollow copper pipe which is chilled by coolant for heat
blocking to the coil. Its IH-coil is applied to relative large IH
systems in smelting or hardening furnace. 2) IH-coil is
developed for small IH systems. Its IH-coil consists of a
twisted superfine copper wire which is called the litz wire [2]
cooled by a blower or natural wind. In this paper, some
applications with latter IH-coil will be introduced.
II. APPLICATION FOR INTERIOR CONSTRUCTION
A. Dismantlable Adhesion Method
Recently, adhesives have been many applied in
house/building constructions, electrical/mechanical parts,
automobiles and many industrial processing. An adhesive is
also called a bond, is roughly classified into two groups,
thermosetting adhesive and thermoplastic adhesive (TS-
adhesive and TP-adhesive for short respectively) [3]. The
former takes strong adhesion typified an epoxy resin, it is
melting in natural temperature. But a modified epoxy resin
might be hardened by heating above 100ºC within few
minutes, so it is convenient in a speed bonding process.
High frequenct power
Induction heating
equipment
Finishing material like
gypsum-board etc.
Adhesive tape
hot-melt
●
MK50WF laminated aluminium
● ５ ４ ５
●
hot-melt
●
Substrates like
plywood etc. Magnetic flux
● ●
Fig. 1 Principle of the ALLOVER method.
978-1-5090-1787-4/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE
School of Science and Engineering, Tokyo Denki University
Hatoyama, Saitama 350-0394 Japan
*tomita@mail.dendai.ac.jp
On the other hand, the TP-adhesive takes slightly weak
adhesion than TS-adhesive, it is consisted of various polymer
resin. The adhesive is a solid state in natural temperature, it
will melt by heating with low temperature around 60ºC
quickly, and also called a hot melt adhesive. Thus TP-
adhesive is also convenient for treatment in natural
temperature, so in these days it is many applied than TS-
adhesive in among industries.
INTRODUCTION In scrap or separate of adhered products, it is very
effective for dismantlement of the products that is devised in
advance a dismantlable adhesion method. It is named normally
as the dismantlable adhesion technology[4]. Our introducing
IH technology with above mentioned adhesives is also one of
the dismantlable adhesion methods.
B. ALLOVER Method
More than ten years ago, we have started the study about
the labor saving and material’s recycling in interior
constructions. Our idea for interior works was unique
technique applying a TP-adhesive coated to steel stud or
finishing materials like wall and floor boards. When the
adhesive was laid between finishing board and metal plate, the
adhesive was melted by metal heating with IH from outside of
the board. And the board and metal were glued together.
Since that time, we have continued the research and
development of new IH devices and methods, and collaborated
with major domestic companies of housing, construction and
building material. Consequently, the working method was
established by their industries, and was named as the
ALLOVER method [4]. The method was also effectiveness for
preventing from sick-house syndrome by interior construction,
none organic solvent in adhesive [5],[6].
Our mission is to develop of suitable IH devices for the
metal heating in various applications of construction, etc. Fig.
1 shows the principle of ALLOVER method. The method is
applicable to both structures of metal stud and wooden stud in
interior construction. The procedure of the adhesion is shown
in Fig. 2 for a case of wooden stud, and accordingly
Magnetic flux
Heating coil
１
Adhesive tape
２
Hot-melt film
４
(ＭＫ５０Ｆ）
(a) for metal stud. (b) for wooden stud.
●
Eddy current
Substrates like
３
steel plate etc.
Fig. 2 Illustration of adhesion and dismantlement. Fig. 3 Hot-melt adhesive tapes (KONISHI Co.).
044
TP-adhesive tape with aluminum foil in Fig. 3 is necessary. TABLE I SPECIFICATIONS OF IH DEVICES
The aluminum tape is heated by IH, and TP-adhesive is melted Trade name Allover Adhesion Equipment.
by heat of aluminum with few seconds. The melting Type
SEW-2110(200V), SEW-
1110(100V).
temperature of the tape is about 180 ºC. After that the
AC200/100V, 50/60Hz,
finishing board is held firmly when adhesive is chilled. Input power
1500W.
Therefore this work with the method is repeatable and Output power 1300W( High Freq.)
recyclable. Output frequency 20kHz
C. Bonding Device Power unit size 140(W)×200(D)×100(H)mm.
Power unit weight 2.5kg
Fig. 4 shows the developed practical portable inverter and
Applicator coil 90(W)×140(D)×120(H)mm.
IH-coil [4]. The specifications of devices are also shown in
Applicator weight 0.7kg
TABLE I. The inverter is used 50A IGBT in IPM (Intelligent
AC input cable 1.5m
Power Module) at 20kHz operation. The frequency will be
High freq. output cable 1.8m
harmless for worker’s health in a construction field. As shown
in Fig. 5, the weight and size of the power unit are sufficiently, Protection
over-load protector
( over-current limiter)
because the inverter unit is fitted to hip and the light applicator
of IH-coil can be hand-held. Fig. 6 shows the bonding work of Heating/Adhesion area Φ77mm (in case of circle coil)
cork floorboards pasted on reverse a thin steel plate as IH load.
The IH-coil and its load’s thermal distribution are shown in
Fig. 7. Certainly, the temperatures of center and edge are
10
200℃

going down, and the radial part of the circle becomes the
8 150℃

Heating time[sec]
highest. Fig. 8 shows the heating characteristics at the
6

maximum temperature point with the gap (meaning distance a

100℃
4

coil and load metal) parameters. At one’s gap that is thickness

2 50℃

of wall or floorboard, Fig. 8 is useful data to obtain the

suitable heating time which is reached to the adhesive’s
0
4 8 12 16 20

melting temperature. Fig. 8 Heating time of IH with gap parameter.

Gap[mm]

Power unit
(High frequency inverter)

Applicator
(Spiral coil)

Fig. 4 Configuration of power unit and applicator. Fig. 9 Weld-Bonding method.

III. APPLICATION FOR MECHANICAL ASSEMBLY PROCESS

A. Weld-Bonding Process
Fig. 5 Work of adhesion to wall material. As another combination of IH and adhesive, a Weld-
Bonding process (WB for short) [7] in mechanical metal joint
using heat hardening of TS-adhesive is introduced [8]. WB is
frequently applied to mechanical assembly process of
automobile, train and airplane etc. In mechanical joint for two
metals with WB as shown in Fig. 9, a TS-adhesive is pasted
Fig. 6 Work of adhesion to floorboards. on the metal first. The TS-adhesive is still melting after that.
200 And the metals are welded by spot-welding machine at regular
℃

spaces about 10cm for an example. But the complete metal

120 joint hasn’t been finished, because the adhesion between spot
and spot in welding is incomplete depending on wet adhesive.
40
To a complete bonding of adhesive, the melted adhesive must
be waited until hardened. In normal industrial process, a
a) Flat circle coil (b) Thermal distribution hardening time of adhesive is more than 2,3 hours, therefore
Fig. 7 IH-coil and thermal distribution in steel plate(0.115mm). the performance in process might be left, otherwise the

045
hardening of adhesive must be waited until a hot painting and
drying process as the arrow-A in Fig. 9. So that in an assembly
process line of automobile for example, a shortening of
hardening time of adhesive is important for complete bonding
of metals, because next operations in line process at once is
impossible for incomplete bonding.
The normal structural adhesives for mechanical bonding are
used epoxy resin or its modification. A solution for shortening Fig. 10 Thermosetting adhesive with epoxy resin.
the hardening time is adding a heat hardening agent to epoxy
TABLE II RATED DATA OF EPOXY RESIN (XNR3628LV).
resin. And we try a heat supplying to metals with small IH for
hardening of adhesives as the arrow-B in Fig. 9. Viscosity 130Pa/s
Specific gravity 1.43
B. Thermosetting Adhesive and IH-coil for WB
120 ºC /20min
As an example, Fig. 10 and TABLE II show a prepared Optimum harden
150 ºC /3min
adhesive that is one component of modified epoxy resin in our conditions
180 ºC /1min
WB experiments. In Fig. 10, (a) shows the adhesive in normal Glassy transition
temperature condition, (b) and (c) show the pasted condition temperature
147 ºC
of adhesive on steel plate and the hardened condition in after
heating. The applied adhesives are necessary to evaluate a
bonding strength test under the JIS (Japan Industrial Standard)
number K 6850.
IH-coil for WB would be manipulated by industrial multi-
joint robot with spot welder. Therefore the IH-coil should be
smaller and lighter that is consisted of litz wire as former
chapter. By the way, the pasted area of adhesive in WB as
Fig. 9 is small, narrow, long and might be curve. Thereupon
we propose the IH-coil wound to U-shape ferrite core (U-core Fig. 11 U-shape ferrite core with winding of 39turns.
for abbrev.) as Fig. 11. This coil is also suitable for concentric
heating to narrow and long steel stud in interior constructions.
C. Heating Characteristics at Coil Moving
An actual performance of IH-coil would be manipulated
by controlling of multi-joint robot arms along the WB line.
Therefore the heating characteristics in moving IH-coil should
be inspected. So at a first step, we observe a heat movement
in target metal under the moving IH-coil. The heating target Fig. 12 Heated steel plate.
metal is selected the flat steel width: 84mm, length: 300mm,
thickness: 0.6mm, that is applied to actual automobile body
with hut shaped structure steel as shown in Fig. 12. And the
gap between IH-coil and heated metal is decided as 1mm by
glass epoxy board.
Fig. 13 shows a measurement system of thermal
distribution under moving IH-coil. The IH-coil is moved by
motor cart with constant speed. The heating positions along
steel plate with moving IH-coil are located two lines that are
Fig. 13 Measurement system in experiment.
center or edge of steel assuming bonding line. The moving
speeds of IH-coil are changed from 25, 40, 55, 72, 83mm/sec
respectively. Fig. 14 shows the examples of moving scenes of
thermal distribution in the center and edge of steel plate at
55mm/sec of moving IH-coil. From the figure, the sufficient
temperature rising and thermal distribution in center are (a) Center line heating of steel plate at coil moving 55mm/sec.
observed, but not on the in edge. As the consideration, the
moving speed of IH-coil is slow yet, it should be over
100mm/sec for practical performance. And the partly weak
heating along edge of steel plate is observed. It is problem
that the measure of IH-coil in this experiment might be large (b) Edge line heating of steel plate at coil moving 55mm/sec.
rather than the margin of edge in bonding line.
Fig. 14 Examples of thermal distribution at coil moving.

046
 IV. APPLICATIONS FOR FOOD COOKER
A. Large Pot Heating
Nowadays cooking equipment using IH is increasing for
safety, high power and efficiency. In this section a thermal
control of large pot is introduced [9]. This pot is called
“ODEN warmer” as Fig. 15 for Japanese popular food which
is mixed and pasted the fish ingredients.
Fig. 15 shows a filled condition with soup and ingredients
in pot. Normally the ODEN pot is heated by one spiral flat
IH-coil or electric sheathed heater in whole the bottom.
However in the ODEN business, the various ingredients are
unsold at one time. But the pot is heated with uniform
temperature in anytime. The aim of this study is development
of system for uniform temperature control in any parts of
bottom. Fortunately the pot is partitioned into six sections, but
its partition is incomplete which is able to mix soup. So we
propose the set of six small IH-coils with temperature control
in each section, as shown in Fig. 16.
The power control scheme is also unique for energy saving.
The system isn’t applied a normal automatic control, and is
employed a classical time sequence control with power on/off.
In this experiment, the electric power in the each IH-coil is
added every one second with sequence. When a setting
temperature of one’s section is over, the input power will be
skipped. As an extreme condition, the three ice blocks as Fig.
17 are dropped in section of coil number 1. Then
temperatures in
(a) (b)
Fig. 15 ODEN warmer (a) and measurement (b).
Fig. 16 Arrangement of induction coil
(a) (b)
Fig. 17 Dropped ice blocks (a) in section1(b).
047
each section are varied as Fig. 18 and there are settled by
feedback control. The temperature control in each section of
pot was satisfied. And the consumed full power at the initial
condition was about 429Wh, but the control power for
warming in 60ºC was about 208Wh. Thus developed warmer
was realized a sufficient temperature control and saving power.
B. Iron Hot Cooking Plate Heating
As one of Japanese popular foods, it is called
YAKINIKU that is grilled a meat on an iron hot plate. In
this section, a power saving of hot plate with IH is introduced
[10]. Fig. 19 shows grilled noodle and meat on the plate.
The cooking temperature on the iron plate is about 200ºC,
and the measurement of the plate is thickness: 4.5mm,
material: SS400 in JIS as Fig. 20(a), and it would be applied
in YAKINIKU restaurant or so on. The aims of development
are division of heating area into four sections and thermal
control of the plate in each area. In general, a normal spiral
flat coil without ferrite core will be applied as mentioned
before section. But the flat coil might be burnt by radiant
heat from overheated iron plate. So we adopted the solid
type IH-coil using E-type ferrite core as Fig. 20(b), which is
able to make a wide space around the coil for cooling with
wind fan as Fig. 21. Then cooling the coils is succeeded as
shown in Fig. 22. Finally the uniform heating in each area is
realized, and the thermal distributions at heating in all areas
are shown in Fig. 23. Thus this development achieved the
goal mostly.
Fig. 18 Temperature control at disturbance in section1
(a) (b)
Fig. 19 Hot plate heater(a) and cooking view(b).
(a) (b)
Fig. 20 Coil arrangement under iron plate (a) and
proposed solenoid type IH-coil per section (b).
 Fig. 21 Cooling for coils with wind fan.

Fig. 24 Two processes in SH- steamer. Fig. 25 Schematic diagram.

(a)

(b)
Fig. 22 Measured points(a) and coil temperatures(b).
(a) (b)
Fig. 26 Trial boiler (a) and structure (b).

Fig. 23 Thermal distributions with full face heating.

V. DEVELOPMENT OF SUPERHEATED STEAMER

A. Process of Steamer and Problems
(a) (b)
In these days, a superheated steam (SHS for short) Fig. 27 IH-coil in SHS generator (a) and heated metal in quartz grass (b).
exceeding a 100ºC in standard atmosphere has been applied to
heating, sterilization, drying and other purposes [11]-[13].
Especially, the superheated steamer (SH-steamer for short)
using IH is now adopted commonly for food processing, dry
processing in painting and disposal system in organic matter
with high temperatures in industries.
Normally for a practical SH-steamer, two processes are
necessary as shown in Fig. 24. The primary process makes a
100ºC steam from natural water. Then, as a secondary process,
the 100ºC steam is additionally heated by IH etc. to make SHS Fig. 28 Structure of SHS generator. Fig. 29 SH-steamer in Lab.
over 100ºC. We developed a novel water boiler and improved
the original SHS generator [14],[15]. Consequently the novel
SH-steamer was realized with downsizing and power-saving.
B. Structure and Work of Steamer
Fig. 25 shows a schematic diagram of SH-steamer. Our
water boiler can be smaller with a daring conception, and
combined with SHS generator.
At first, natural water from water tank or waterworks is
supplied to a steamer. The natural water is send to the cooling
Fig. 30 Rising temperature of SHS.
hose in the SHS generator for protection of overheated IH-coil,

048
 TABLE III EFFICIENCIES OF TRIAL STEAMER.
by control of small pump according to fixed water flow rate.
The water passed cooling hose is send to the input of boiler,
and filled water is heated by IH until bubble to 100ºC steam.
Its boiled steam flows to the quartz glass tube of SHS
generator. The inside of the tube is enclosed a heated metal by
IH. The IH-coil is wound to an outside of the tube with
cooling hose. The boiled steam will be in contact to high
temperature metal, and the steam temperature rises gradually
toward the exit of the tube. Thus the temperature and volume
of required SHS can be obtained by control with IH power.
C. Prototype Steamer and Experiment
A determination of volume of SHS isn’t easy. So it is
normally determined by substitution of input water flow rate.
In this experiment, it is roughly estimated as 1[litter/hour].
The flowing water through the cooling hose is sent to
boiler input. The trial boiler with handmade is shown in Fig.
26. The number of coil winding is 72 turns with litz wire of
current rating 10A. When the coil current is supplied by high
frequency inverter, the stainless steel pipe is heated by IH, and
the water in contact to the heated pipe is heated up to 100ºC
steam. Then the 100ºC steam is sent to the SHS generator.
The SHS generator is composed of IH-coil and heated metal
in quartz tube, as shown in Fig. 27. Their combined structure
is shown in Fig. 28. The IH-coil is wound around the wooden
bobbin, and the coil winding with litz wire is 160 turns and
10A, 20kHz for a rating. In inside of the IH-coil, the cooling
hose with flexible silicon tube is wound for blocking the
radiant heat from the high temperature metal in the quartz
grass. Thus overheat of IH-coil is protected, and the silicon
tube also absorbs the radiant heat which is useful as the
retained heat to the boiler. The insertion of this silicon tube is
an original method of our SH-steamer.
Temperature of the heated metal with electro-magnetic
induction will be heated up extremely in the quartz tube, and it
may reaches about 1000ºC. At that time of high temperature
heating, the electric resistance of heated metal may be
changed and the metal may be oxidized by strong thermal
energy [16]. To eradicate this problem, we selected new steel
piece [17]. Three flat steel belts of width 20mm, length
430mm, and thickness 0.4mm are provided for constant
resistance and resisting oxidation in condition over 1000ºC.
The steel belts are twisted in double spirals, and enclosed
inside of quartz tube.
With this estimation from theoretical analysis [18] and
experiments, we operated the whole SH-steamer developed in
the lab as shown in Fig. 29. The water flow rate x[l/h], target
rising temperature s[ºC] of SHS, natural water temperature
t[ºC] were fixed as x =1litter/hour (=0.278cc/sec), s =550ºC
and t = 20ºC. A result of the experiment, Fig. 30 shows the
output characteristics of rising temperatures of SHS in 60sec.
The figure indicates the realization of satisfied high
temperature SHS in a short time. And the efficiencies are
049
deduced as TABLE III from comparison of theoretical steam
power and experimental electric power. From Table III the
efficiency of SHS generator was very low, so improvement of
the low efficiency should be considered.
VI CONCLUSION
We have introduced the some applications of developed
induction heater. Especially the superheated steamer with IH
is anticipating technique for a food processing and others.
The history of induction heating is old, but recent applications
of small induction heater make exciting progress in industries
and home appliances. Many industry applications in particular
would be appeared in a stream.
REFERENCES
[1] V. Rudnev, D. Loveless, R. Cook, M. Black, Handbook of Induction
Heating, Book, CRC Press, 2002.
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litz_wire
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adhesive
[4] T. Sekine, H. Tomita, Y. Saito, S. Obata, S. Yoshimura, Characteristics
of Induction Heating Device for Dismantlable Adhesion in Interior
Construction, Proc. of IEEE IECON’07, pp.1357-1362, Taiwan, 2007.
[5] M. Inoue, Trend of adhesive and bonding technology for high
performance and environmental protection, WEB Journal, No.67, Actry-
m Press, pp.27-31, 2005. (in Japanese)
[6] M. Inoue, The suitable hot-melt adhesive for environmental protection
and a way to not solvent adhesive, WEB Journal, No.67, Actry-m Press,
pp.41-43, 2005. (in Japanese)
[7] I.O.Santos, W.Zhang, V.M.Goncalves, N.Bay, P.A.F.Martins, Weld
bonding of stainless steel, INT J MACH TOOL MANU 44, pp1431-1439,
2004.
[8] A.Nomoto, K.Ohnishi, T.Haneyoshi, H.Tomita, N.Takahashi,
Application of Induction Heating for Weld-Bonding Method, Proc. ICEE
2015, ICEE15A-170, Hong Kong, July 2015.
[9] A.Ando, T.Haneyoshi, H.Tomita, N.Takahashi, Thermal contorol of
large pot with multi-coil induction heater, Journal of the JIPE, Vol.40,
pp.112-119, 2015 (in Japanese)
[10] D.Miyamura, T.Haneyoshi, H.Tomita, N.Takahashi, Iron hot cooking
plate induction heating, Journal of the JIPE, Vol.40, pp.160-167, 2015.
(in Japanese)
[11] G.Rodriguez, J.Vasseur, F.Courtois, Design and control of drum dryers
for the food industry. Part1. Set-up of a moisture sensor and an
inductive heater, Journal of Food Engineering, Vol.28, Issues 3-4,
pp.271-282, 1996.
[12] O.Yamada, Generation of hydrogen gas by reforming biomass with
superheated steam, Thin Solid Films, Vol.509, Issues 1-2, pp.207-211,
2006.
[13] A.S.Mujumdar, L.X.Huang, Global R&D needs in drying, Drying
Technology, Vol.25, pp.647-658, 2007.
[14] Y. Makimura, H. Tomita, S. Motegei, Improvement of Superheated
Steam Generator by Induction Heating, Proc. of 2010 International
Conference on Computer Applications and Industrial Electronics
(ICCAIE2010), pp.546-549, Malaysia, 2010.
[15] R.Takasaka, K.Ohnishi, T.Haneyoshi, H.Tomita, N.Takahashi,
Improvement of Superheated Steamer Using Induction Heating, Proc.
ICEE 2015, ICEE15A-226, Hong Kong, July 2015 .
[16] H. Konno, T. Shigekuni, H. Tamura, M. Nagayama, The Effect of Water
Vapor on the Oxidation of Type 430 Stainless Steel at 1,100℃, Boshoku
Gijutsu, 34, pp670-678 (1985). (in Japanese)
[17] Nippon Steel & Sumikin Stainless Steel Corporation, NSSC 405Si,
http://nssc.nssmc.com/product/grade/ferrite/NSSC_405Si.php
[18] The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers, JSME STEAM TABLES, The
Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers Press, Nov. 1999.(in Japanese)