A dual frequency resonant inverter for different material vessel induction hob

Induction heating (IH) is the most preferred technology for domestic and industrial heating applications owing to its advantages over conventional heating methods. Heating requirements for ferromagnetic (FM) and non-ferromagnetic (N-FM) materials are different. There is an increase in research for heating these different material vessels. In this research work, a three switch dual frequency resonant inverter (3 S-DFRI) with dual frequency control is proposed. It has been used for simultaneous and independent heating of steel and aluminum loads. The inverter operation is verified by rigorous simulation and experimentation on the developed 2 kW prototype. It can also be extended for multiple loads by additional inverter legs each with three switches. Each additional leg provides two independent load operation. Compatibility with different material IH loads, reduced number of switching devices, no use of electro-mechanical switches, compact size and high efficiency are the key advantages of the proposed inverter.