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Published in IET Power Electronics Received on 31st March 2010 Revised on 30th September 2010 doi: 10.1049/iet-pel.2010.0107

ISSN 1755-4535

Series resonant inverter with selective harmonic operation applied to all-metal domestic induction heating
I. Millan1 J.M. Burdo1 J. Acero1 O. Luca1 S. Llorente2
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Department of Electronic Engineering and Communications, University of Zaragoza, Spain BSH Bosch and Siemens Home Appliances Group, Spain E-mail: imillan@unizar.es

Abstract: Usually domestic induction appliances heat ferromagnetic pans. This technology is well known and it is successfully applied by many manufacturers. However, there are a number of non-ferromagnetic pans (made of aluminium, copper, coppernickel or stainless steel) that cannot be properly heated by this technology. This study presents a modied half-bridge series resonant inverter topology that can be used to heat ferromagnetic and non-ferromagnetic pans by means of a selective harmonic operation technique. The proposed inverter topology has two topological congurations with two operation modes: the rst-harmonic operation mode and the third-harmonic operation mode. These two operation modes and the design of the principal parts of the inverter are presented in this study. Experimental results obtained with a prototype are also presented. The performance of the proposed resonant inverter topology with ferromagnetic pans is satisfactory and with nonferromagnetic pans is acceptable.

Introduction

Nowadays, induction heating technology is used for domestic cooking [1, 2] or industrial appliances [3, 4]. The main blocks of a domestic induction cooker are outlined in Fig. 1. The mains voltage is rectied and ltered, obtaining a DC bus. Then the resonant inverter supplies high-frequency current (between 20 and 100 kHz) to the induction coil. This current produces an alternating magnetic eld, which causes eddy currents and magnetic hysteresis in the material heating up the pan. The half-bridge series resonant inverter (Fig. 2) is the most used topology because of the electrical requirements of its components, its simplicity and its costeffectiveness [5]. The inverter load consists of the pan and the induction coil. Its impedance is modelled as the series connection of an induction coil and a resistor (Fig. 3), based on the transformer analogy, and it is dened by the equivalent values of Leq and Req [6]. Domestic induction cookers are capable of heating ferromagnetic pans in a power range between 50 and 4400 W. The power regulation of a cooker is based on a hysteresis power control. This regulation is based on changing some values of the control parameters as a function of the difference between the average output power [7] and the target output power. The modulation strategies typically used in domestic induction heating are the square wave (SW) control [8] and the asymmetrical duty cycle (ADC) control [9]. In SW control, the parameter that controls the output power is the switching frequency ( fs); whereas in ADC control, the parameters are fs and the duty
IET Power Electron., 2011, Vol. 4, Iss. 5, pp. 587592 doi: 10.1049/iet-pel.2010.0107

ratio (D). In these controls when fs is increased or D is reduced the output power decreases. Usually the resonant inverter operates in the so-called rst-harmonic operation mode (FHOM) [10]. The main characteristic of FHOM is that the most important part of the power is transferred by the rst harmonic of the current with respect to the switching frequency ( fs) (Fig. 4). In the European market, domestic induction appliances can only heat ferromagnetic pans. This technology is well known and it is successfully applied by many manufacturers. However, there are a number of non-ferromagnetic pans (made of aluminium, copper, copper-nickel or stainless steel), which cannot be properly heated by this technology. In the Japanese market, some models of domestic induction appliances are capable of heating ferromagnetic and nonferromagnetic pans; these models are called all-metal induction cookers. In the past, other inverter topologies for all-metal domestic induction heating have been proposed. A half-bridge series resonant inverter with a double-layer coil and two resonant circuit capacitors is proposed in [11]. This topology is a half-bridge modied by adding one relay and one resonant capacitor, and the induction coil consists of two separate coils. The half-bridge series resonant inverter with reverseblocking two-terminal quasi-resonant zero current switching (ZCS) cells is proposed for heating aluminium vessels in [12]. This topology is based on a half-bridge inverter, which is modied adding four inductances, four diodes, and one resonant capacitor, and the induction coils consists of two separate coils. Recently, the boost half-bridge series
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to the other ones, and it is based on a modied half-bridge topology with two selective harmonic operation modes.

Characteristics of the load

Fig. 1 Block diagram of a domestic induction cooker

The values of the inductance and the resistance of the pan inductor coupling depend on the characteristics of the induction coil, the frequency of the current and the properties of the pan [15]. Fig. 5 shows the frequencydependent inductance and resistance with ferromagnetic and non-ferromagnetic (aluminium) pans for a typical induction coil with 23-turns and an external diameter of 21 cm. Fig. 5 shows that the inductance is approximately constant with respect to the frequency in the considered range and that the resistance varies in the considered limits. The relationships between the inductance and the resistance with non-ferromagnetic pans (LeqNF and ReqNF) and with ferromagnetic pans (LeqF and ReqF) for the same frequency are shown in (1) and (2). Leq F Req F 2 Leq NF 10 Req NF (1) (2)

Fig. 2 Half-bridge series resonant inverter topology schematic

This difference between the load impedances permits to identify the type of material to be heated. The output power at the resonant frequency can be calculated as Po =
h 2 Vo h rms Req h

(3)

where Voh,rms is the rms value of the hth harmonic of the output voltage (vo). When the signal vo is a symmetrical
Fig. 3 The pan inductor coupling is modelled as an L R equivalent circuit

Fig. 4 Typical waveforms of output voltage (v0) and load current (iL) when the inverter operates in the rst-harmonic operation mode

load resonant inverter with two selective resonant capacitors has been proposed in [13, 14] for all-metal induction heating. The advantage of this topology is that the currents in the devices are minimised for a given output power. However, this topology adds two inductances, two capacitors, one relay and one resonant capacitor with respect to the half-bridge inverter. In this paper, an inverter topology is proposed for heating both magnetic and non-magnetic pans. The proposed topology minimises the number of components with respect
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Fig. 5 Frequency-dependent
a Inductance b Resistance IET Power Electron., 2011, Vol. 4, Iss. 5, pp. 587 592 doi: 10.1049/iet-pel.2010.0107

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square wave, Voh,rms is dened as follows Vo h rms = 2 Vi , ph 2 h, odd (4) It is possible to calculate the current requirements of the inverter when an aluminium material is tried to be heated using the previous inverter, that is, using the same resonant capacitor (C 1200 nF) and with the same mains voltage. In this case, the resonant frequency calculated with (1) and (6) is 32 kHz, considering that at this frequency ReqNF 0.3 V (Fig. 5b) and LeqNF 20 mH (Fig. 5a). The value of the maximum output power at the resonant frequency is 36 kW and the rms value of load current is 345 A. These operation conditions are not acceptable for a domestic induction cooker because they exceed the ratings of the commonly used devices. Regarding last results one conclusion can be extracted: the resistance for non-ferromagnetic pans is too low, and the maximum output power and the load current are too high for an acceptable performance of the inverter. In order to increase this resistance and to decrease the maximum output power and the load current, a modied half-bridge inverter with the third-harmonic operation mode (THOM) is proposed in the next section.

where Vi is the dc input voltage of the inverter. The amplitude of the load current for the hth harmonic (ILh) is dened as ILh = R2 h eq 2 Vi , h, odd (5) being Reqh and Leqh the equivalent resistance and inductance at the frequency correspondent to the hth harmonic and C the resonant capacitor. The resonant frequency ( fo) can be calculated as fo = 1 2p Leq C (6)

+ [h 2 p fs Leq h (1/h 2p fs C)]2

Thus, the value of the resonant capacitor (C ) can be deduced from (6) as C= 1 4 p2 fo2 Leq (7)

3 Proposed operation mode and inverter topology

3.1 Third-harmonic operation mode

A typical value of the switching frequency for the maximum output power with ferromagnetic pans is 23 kHz. The resistance is approximately 3 V (Fig. 5b) and the inductance is 40 mH (Fig. 5a) for this frequency. The resonant capacitor calculated with (7) is 1200 nF for this load with fo 23 kHz. The output power at the resonant frequency calculated with (3) and (4) is 3500 W with Vi 230 V, and the rms load current is 34 A.

Fig. 6 Typical waveforms for the THOM

The THOM is based on obtaining a load current with the main contribution of output power at the third harmonic of the switching frequency ( fs) (Fig. 6). The principal characteristics of this operation mode are the following. First, there is a higher equivalent resistance because it increases when the frequency of the load current increases, according to Fig. 5b. In this case, the resistance with THOM is 0.4 V, when the frequency of the load current is 69 kHz. Second, the rms value of the output voltage is three times lower than the value with FHOM. The rms output voltage can be calculated with (4) and this value with THOM is 34.5 V, whereas the rms value with FHOM is 103.5 V. These differences produce that the maximum output power with THOM is lower than the value with FHOM. The maximum output power with THOM calculated with (3) is 2980 W. This power is similar to the power delivered with ferromagnetic pans. The Fourier description of the output voltage (v0) and load current (iL) when the inverter operates in the third-harmonic mode with an output power of 343 W and a switching frequency of 23 kHz is shown in Fig. 7. Fig. 7 shows that the amplitude of the third harmonic of the load current is almost seven times higher than the amplitude of its rst harmonic. Moreover, the amplitude of the third harmonic of the output voltage is three times less than the amplitude of its rst harmonic. The output power of the hth harmonic (Poh) can be calculated as Po h ILh = 2
2

Req h

(8)

The output powers of the rst and third harmonics are 8 and 333 W, respectively. Therefore the contribution of the third harmonic is the highest, being a 97% of the total output power. 3.2 Resonant inverter topology for heating all-metal pans
Fig. 7 Fourier description of the output voltage (v0) and load current (iL) when the inverter operates in the THOM with an output power of 343 W and a switching frequency of 23 kHz
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The resonant frequency with an aluminium pan and a resonant capacitor of 1200 nF is 32 kHz. Therefore the switching frequency operating with THOM should be
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10.6 kHz. This switching frequency is in the audible range generating acoustic noise. The acoustic noise can be avoided with another resonant capacitor because the resonant frequency changes. So the requirements of the inverter to operate with THOM are that the value of the resonant capacitor must be changed when the load has non-ferromagnetic characteristics. For this reason, a modied half-bridge series resonant inverter with an additional relay to change the value of the resonant capacitor (Fig. 8) is proposed. The proposed topology only adds one relay and one resonant capacitor tank respect to the half-bridge inverter. The power regulation control with THOM is similar to the control with FHOM. The main difference is the range of switching frequencies. The range of switching frequency with FHOM is between the resonant frequency ( fo) and the maximum switching frequency of the inverter (75 kHz), while the range of switching frequency with THOM is approximately between f0/2 and f0/3. Moreover the value of f0 with THOM is higher than the value with FHOM because the resonant capacitor is lower, so the value of the initial switching frequency of the control algorithm depends on the operation mode. The initial conguration of this inverter topology is with the relay closed. When the user selects a heating area, the cooker automatically achieves the detection of the pan, by means of measuring the load current and the input voltage when the inverter operates during a short period of time. These measurements permit to calculate the ratio between the inductance and the resistance of the load. Thus the type of material (ferromagnetic or non-ferromagnetic) can be determined. If the pan is ferromagnetic the relay remains closed and the equivalent resonant capacitor is CF C1 + C2 . If the detected pan is non-ferromagnetic, the relay is opened and the equivalent resonant capacitor is CNF C1 . 3.3 Design of the resonant capacitor and the proposed inverter topology Capacitors C1 and C2 must be properly selected for the proposed topology. The values of these capacitors determine the maximum output power and the range of the switching frequency. The considered design criterion is that the switching frequency for the maximum output power with ferromagnetic pans is the same that the one with nonferromagnetic pans. Thus, the switching frequency for both materials is given by fs = 1 2p h Leq C (9) capacitor for non-ferromagnetic pans (CNF) can be calculated as CNF = Leq F /Leq NF CF 9 (10)

According to this equation, the resonant capacitors C1 and C2 can be obtained as C1 = CNF C2 = CF CNF (11) (12)

Considering the material characteristics of Fig. 5 at 23 kHz, the values of LeqF and CF are 40 mH and 1200 nF, respectively (as indicated in Section 2). The inductance LeqNF is 20 mH for a frequency three times higher than the switching frequency. The value of CNF calculated with (10) is 270 nF. Owing to the available values of capacitance, the selected value for CNF is 300 nF. So the values of C1 and C2 calculated with (11) and (12) are 300 and 900 nF, respectively. The design of the proposed inverter topology is very similar to the design of a half-bridge resonant inverter for heating ferromagnetic pans because the EMI lter, the DC source and the digital control are very similar. Moreover the range of switching frequency is the same, so the driver circuit of the half-bridge is the same. The design is different in aspects as the switching device, the resonant capacitor and the induction coil. Usually, the switching device is an IGBT device, whose maximum rms current for high temperature is 40 A. The maximum rms current of the IGBT device for the proposed inverter for high temperature must be 70 A. The resonant capacitors C1 and C2 are implemented by some capacitors in series and parallel. C1 is implemented by six cells in parallel; each cell consists of two capacitors of 100 nF in series. C2 consists of six capacitors of 150 nF in parallel. The induction coil used in the proposed inverter topology is different because the cross-section area of the cable is higher because the load current is also higher. The cable used is a litz-wire of 54 strands whose diameter is 0.3 mm.

Experimental results

The resonant inverter prototype has been tested for several induction loads, one made of ferromagnetic steel and the other one made of aluminium. Fig. 9 shows a photograph

where h 1 for ferromagnetic pans and h 3 for nonferromagnetic pans. According to the previous criterion, the

Fig. 8 Modied half-bridge series resonant inverter topology

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Fig. 9 Photograph of the modied half-bridge inverter prototype for all-metal domestic induction heating
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of the modied half-bridge resonant inverter prototype. This prototype is based on the main board of a commercial induction cooker. An electronic board consists of two halfbridge series resonant inverters; each inverter contains two IGBT devices with anti-parallel diode. This prototype is a main board of an actual commercial induction cooker that it is modied including an additional relay to change the value of the resonant capacitor. The digital control is implemented using a eld programmable gate array (FPGA). Fig. 10a shows the main waveforms with the ferromagnetic pan with a switching frequency of 22.5 kHz. Fig. 10b shows the main waveforms with the non-ferromagnetic pan. The switching frequency is 22.3 kHz and the fundamental harmonic (the third one) of the load current is 67 kHz. In both cases the output power is 2000 W. It can be observed that the peak and rms values of the load current with non-ferromagnetic pans are higher than the values with ferromagnetic pans for the same output power. The peak and rms values with the non-ferromagnetic pan are 133 and 70 A, respectively, while these values with the ferromagnetic pan are 38 and 27 A, respectively. Hence, the conduction and switching losses of the switching devices for the non-ferromagnetic pan are increased, and, consequently, the efciency will be decreased. Fig. 11a shows the main waveforms with the ferromagnetic pan at a low-output power. The output power is 450 W and the switching frequency is 58.3 kHz. Fig. 11b shows the waveforms with the non-ferromagnetic pan at the same output power as the ferromagnetic material. The switching frequency is 23.3 kHz and the fundamental harmonic (the third one) of the load current is 70 kHz. The waveforms for low-output power can be compared with the waveforms for high-output power. It can be observed that, for the same output power variation, the non-ferromagnetic pan needs a lower frequency variation. The frequency variation is 1 kHz for non-ferromagnetic pans and 36 kHz for ferromagnetic materials. It is because of the different equivalent impedance between them. The measured efciency of the resonant inverter with the ferromagnetic pan is 93% and the value with the nonferromagnetic pan is 70%. The efciency was measured with a commercial power analyser. The precision of the power analyser is +5% at the high-frequency range. The total efciency of the cooker, which includes the losses in the windings, can be measured with a thermal method, considering the measurement of the input energy of the cooker necessary to increase the temperature from 20 up to 908C of 1 litre of water. The measured total efciency with the ferromagnetic pan is 89% and the value with the nonferromagnetic pan is 62%. From the previous results of efciency, the efciency of the induction coil can be obtained. The efciency of the induction coil with the ferromagnetic pan is 96% and the value with the nonferromagnetic pan is 87%. Hence, the power losses of the induction coil for non-ferromagnetic pans are higher and so the temperature of the induction coil also is higher. Finally, several standard tests have been carried out to measure the temperature of the main components of the

Fig. 10 Experimental waveforms of the IGBT control signals (vGS1 and vGS2), output voltage (v0), and load current (iL)
a With the ferromagnetic pan and P0 2000 W. Scales: v0 , 100 V/div; iL , 20 A/div; and time, 10 ms/div b With the non-ferromagnetic pan and P0 2000 W. Scales: v0 , 100 V/div; iL , 50 A/div; and time, 5 ms/div

Fig. 11 Experimental waveforms of the IGBT control signals (vGS1 and vGS2), output voltage (v0) and load current (iL)
a With the ferromagnetic pan and P0 450 W. Scales: v0 , 100 V/div; iL , 5 A/div; and time, 4 ms/div b With the non-ferromagnetic pan and P0 450 W. Scales: v0 , 100 V/div; iL , 20 A/div; and time, 10 ms/div IET Power Electron., 2011, Vol. 4, Iss. 5, pp. 587592 doi: 10.1049/iet-pel.2010.0107 591

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cooker. These tests are based on in heating water at maximum power during half an hour and deep-frying potato with sunower oil. The values of temperatures for nonferromagnetic pans are acceptable, although they are higher than the values for ferromagnetic pans.
3 4 5 IGBTs for consumer induction cooking heater, IEE Proc. Electr. Power Appl., 2004, 151, (5), pp. 563 568 Sergeant, P., Hectors, D., Dupre, L., Van Reusel, K.: Thermal analysis of magnetic shields for induction heating, IET Electr. Power Appl., 2009, 3, (6), pp. 543 550 Sergeant, P., Sabariego, R.V., Crevecoeur, G., Dupre, L., Geuzaine, C.: Analysis of perforated magnetic shields for electric power applications, IET Electr. Power Appl., 2009, 3, (2), pp. 123132 Llorente, S., Monterde, F., Burdio, J.M., Acero, J.: A comparative study of resonant inverter topologies used in induction cookers. IEEE Proc. Applied Power Electronics Conference (APEC), Dallas, USA, March 2002, pp. 1168 1174 Dawson, F.P., Jain, P.K.: A comparison of load commutated inverter systems for induction heating and melting applications, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., 1991, 6, (3), pp. 430 441 Artigas, J.I., Urriza, I., Acero, J., Barragan, L.A., Navarro, D., Burdio, J.M.: Power measurement by output-current integration in series resonant inverters, IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., 2009, 56, (2), pp. 559567 Young-Sup, K., Sang-Bong, Y., Dong-Seok, H.: Half-bridge series resonant inverter for induction heating applications with load-adaptive PFM control strategy. IEEE Proc. Applied Power Electronics Conf. (APEC), Dallas, USA, March 1999, pp. 575 581 Jain, P.K., St-Martin, A., Edwards, G.: Asymmetrical pulse-widthmodulated resonant DC/DC converter topologies, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., 1996, 11, (3), pp. 413422 Koertzen, H.W., Van Wyk, J.D., Ferreira, J.A.: Design of the halfbridge series resonant converters for induction cooking. IEEE Proc. Power Electronics Specialist Conf. (PESC), Atlanta, USA, June 1995, pp. 729735 Tanaka, T.: A new induction cooking range for heating any kind of metal vessels, IEEE Trans. Consum. Electron., 1989, 35, (3), pp. 635641 Ogiwara, H., Nakaoka, M.: ZCS high frequency inverter using SIT for induction heating applications, IEE Proc. Electr. Power Appl., 2003, 150, (2), pp. 185 192 Ahmed, N.A., Nakaoka, M.: Boost-half-bridge edge resonant soft switching PWM high-frequency inverter for consumer induction heating appliances, IEE Proc. Electr. Power Appl., 2006, 153, (6), pp. 932938 Sadakata, H., Fujita, A., Saha, B., Ahmed, T., Nakaoka, M.: Latest practical developments of triplex series load resonant frequencyoperated high frequency inverter for induction-heated low resistivity metallic appliances in consumer built-in cooktops. IEEE Proc. Applied Power Electronics Conf. (APEC), Palm Springs, USA, February 2010, pp. 1825 1832 Acero, J., Alonso, R., Burdio, J.M., Barragan, L.A., Puyal, D.: Analytical equivalent impedance for a planar circular induction heating system, IEEE Trans. Magn., 2006, 42, (1), pp. 8486 Acero, J., Burdo, J.M., Llorente, S., Monterde, F.: Inductive heating device for ferromagnetic or non-ferromagnetic heating units, has oscillating circuit with resonant frequency that is switchable from one resonant frequency to another different resonant frequency by utilizing switch unit. Spanish Patent DE102006005813 (A1), August 2005

Conclusions

This paper describes the development of a modied halfbridge series resonant inverter topology for induction heating not only ferromagnetic pans but also nonferromagnetic pans, such as aluminium pans, which can be heated by the THOM. The main advantage of the proposed inverter topology is that it minimises the number of components in comparison with other all-metal topologies. In this proposal, it is only necessary to change the value of the resonant capacitor. The proposed topology and control strategy have been patented [16]. This inverter topology has been tested with a modied electronic board of a commercial induction cooker. The performance of this resonant inverter topology with ferromagnetic pans is high and with non-ferromagnetic pans is acceptable.

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Acknowledgments

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This work was supported in part by the Spanish MEC under Project TEC2010-19207 and Project CSD2009-00046, by DGA under project PI008/08, and by Bosch and Siemens Home Appliances Group. The authors are members of the I3A, Instituto de Investigacion en Ingenieria de Aragon, Zaragoza 50018, Spain. An earlier version of this paper was presented at ISIE 2007, 4 7 June, Vigo, Spain: Resonant Inverter Topology for AllMetal Domestic Induction Heating. IEEE Int. Symp. on Industrial Electronics. Proc. (ISIE07), 2007, pp. 913 918. Oral session. In this paper, new measurements and experimental results are included.

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References

1 Acero, J., Burdio, J.M., Barragan, L.A., et al.: Domestic induction appliances: an overview of recent research, IEEE Ind. Appl. Mag., 2010, 16, (2), pp. 3947 2 Ogura, K., Gamage, L., Ahmed, T., et al. Performance evaluation of edge-resonant ZVS-PWM high-frequency inverter using trench-gate

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IET Power Electron., 2011, Vol. 4, Iss. 5, pp. 587 592 doi: 10.1049/iet-pel.2010.0107