Design sensitivity of electro-thermal systems for exciting-coil positioning

This paper presents a design sensitivity algorithm for temperature distribution control in induction heating problems which require electro-thermal analysis. The eddy current distribution is calculated with the electromagnetic 2D finite element procedure. The obtained eddy current becomes a heat source which determines the temperature distribution, which is also obtained by the thermal 2D finite element method. In this paper, the goal of the design is to have the uniform distribution of the temperature on a surface of heated metal. The positions of exciting coils are taken as design parameters. The steepest descent method is used as an optimization algorithm. For the optimal design of an induction heating system, the design sensitivity is derived using the relation of two analysis system equations, and is applied to a numerical example.