IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. MAG-21, NO.

5 , SEPTEMBER 1985 1921

HIGH QUALITY SOFT HEATING METHOD UTILIZING TEMPERATURE DEPENDENCE

OF PERMEABILITY AND CORE LOSS OF LOW CURIE TEMPERATURE FERRITE

H.Matsukiand K. Murakami

Abstract-High quality Soft Heating method utilizing
low Curie temperature ferrite is developed. The heater
generates sufficient heatatroom temperature and
stops heating abruptly at the Curie temperature. The
heat characteristics of the heater and the suitable
exciting conditions are clarified.
INTRODUCTION
Soft Heating method [l] is a kind of induction
heating method utilizing temperature-sensitive magnetic
materials whose hysteresis loss and permeability large-
ly depend on temperature. In Soft Heating method, the
essential parameter is temperature in controlling the
generation of heatand no additional temperature-
control circuits are needed.
Recently, local or whole body hyperthermia has
become a topic of broad interest and studies and appli-
cations of thermal therapy to malignant tumors have
been performedL21. In these medical treatments precise
controlling of temperature is needed in order to
protect normal tissues from thermal damage. If Soft
Heating can be applied to the medical treatments, the
method will open up a new fieldof hyperthermic
oncology, because the final temperature cannot exceed
the Curie point and therefore is self-limiting.
Temperature-sensitive magnetic materials for Soft
Heating must include the following properties:
i) capability of producing sufficient heat for the
tissue to reach the desired temperature.
ii) transition from the ferromagnetic to the non-ferro-
magnetic state should be sharp,
The requirements for the materials, however, are very
stringent and it seems difficult to develop suitable
materials for Soft Heating at present.
In this paper, the hybrid heaterhas been develop-
ed, which is composed of a temperature sensitive
ferrite rod and a metal ring. The hybrid heater is
expectedto absorb theenergy efficiently from an
external magnetic field and generate sufficient heat at
room temperature and to decrease the heat abruptly
near the Curie point of the ferrite.
The heater characteristics andthe appropriate
condition for heating have been discussed andthe
heater has been tested in egg albumin as a phantom and
the temperature distribution around the heater hasbeen
measured.
DESIGN OF THE HYBRID HEATER
The hybrid ,heater consists of a temperature-
sensitive ferrite rod and non magnetic metal ring as
shown in Fig. l(a). When the heater is placed in a time
varying magnetic field, the core loss of the ferrite
and the induced currents in the metal ring heat the
ferrite rod and the metal ring.
Interactions with the magnetic field dependon the
permeability of the ferrite rod and therefore on
temperature. Only in the temperature range under the
Curie point, the ferrite rod concentrates the magnetic
flux (Fig. l(b)). The degree of the concentration is
represented by the apparent permeability E* related to
the shape of the ferrite rod:
whereNd is the demagnetizing factor and is the rel-
ative permeability of the ferrite rod and-depends not
only on temperature but on the effective field strength
Heffwhich is expressed as :
where He, represents an external magnetic field.
We can calculate the temperature dependence of the
apparent relative permeability using'(l), ( 2 ) and the
measured permeability vs. effective field intensity
curves of the ferrite. Figure 2 shows the example of
temperature characteristics ofthe apparent permea-
bility, comparing with calculated values. The figure
reveals that measured values agree well with calculated
values and that the suitable range of external field
exists. For example, the suitable range was obtained
from calculation asHex<50Nd'(kA/m) for ferrite with
the Curie point of 63 eC.
Figure 3 shows the temperature characteristics of
the apparent permeability ii*
with various demagnetizing
factor Nd in the external field range satisfying the
above condition.

15
temperature-sensitive T <Tc
ferrite rod
+ ' I - : CAL.

0453-
(a)
metal
ring

(b)
H

T 'T,
Pig. 1, (a)Structure of the hybrid heater; (b)Principle
*= 10

5
o : Hex= 1 kA/m
: Hex= 5 kA/m

_,=lo kA/m

of self-limiting operation, I I I
0 20 ' 40 60 80
Manuscript received March 1 , 1985. T C"C1
The authors are with Dept. of Electrical Engineering, Fig. 2. Temperature dependence of apparent permeability
Tohoku University, Aoba, Aramaki, Sendai, 980 Japan. with various external field intensity.

0018-9464/85/0900-1927$01.0001985 IEEE
1928

Nd ~ 0 . 0 3 4
0 0 0 0 0 0 0

0 and in this case the metalresistance 2' is expressed:

0
20 0
0 wherePois permeability of vacuum, f exciting frequency
V volume of heater, S and e cross section and length of
ferrite, respectively.
Equation ( 4 ) indicates that temperature character-
istic of the generated heat depends on the apparent
permeability of the ferrite rod.
I 0

1.251-

0 20 40 60 80
T ["CI
Fig. 3 . Temperature dependence of apparent permeability
with various demagnetizing factor.

Figure 4 shows the temperature characteristics of

the apparent permeability with various ferrite rods
with the different Curie temperatures.
. A s shown inthesefiguresthehybridheaterfor
Soft Heating can be designed in order toshow the suit-
able characteristics at desired temperatures.

Fig. 5. Relation between the generated heat and the

metal ring resistance.

Figure 6 shows theoutput oftheheaterand

example of thetemperature characteristics ofthe
generating heat with various magnetic field intensity.
In experiments, weusedthe temperature sensitive
ferrite rod (5 mm in diameter and 40 mm length) and
00 metal ring made of gold with thickness of0.1 mm.
As shown in the figure, the heater acts as a
I I I I 1 I
constant heat flux type in the temperature range below
20 40 60 80 the Curie point and acts as a constant temperature
typeafterthetemperaturereaches the Curiepoint
under the exciting condition satisfying the relation
Fig, 4 . Temperature characteristics of apparent permea- described in the previous section.
bility with various ferrite rods having the different
Curie points.

HEAT GENERATION

As the heater is excitedin a time-varying magnet-

ic field we have calculated the generated heat quantity
using a modified equivalent circuit for a usual trans-
former .
The external magnetic field He, is assumed to be c,
Ki
generated by a solenoid coil whose exciting current is
I1 . The generated heat is expressed: 510
3
, . "

where r is, reduced metal resistance and X, the exciting

reactance.
Figure 5 shows the relation between the generated 0
heat and the metal ring resistance. The figure reveals 20 40 60 80
that the calculated values agree well withexperimental TC"C1
ones. Fig. 6. Output of the hybrid heater and temperature
As is clear from ( 3 ) , the generated heat W has characteristics of the generating heat with various
maximum value Wmax atr=Xo, which is expressed: magnetic field intensity.
 1929

In the hyperthermic treatment, temperature of 70-

tissues during heating is greatly influenced by the
rate of heat dissipation by blood flow. The influence
is assumed t o beexpressedasthe fluctuation of 6
thermal resistance around the heater.
Figure 7 shows the relation between the attained
temperature T, and thermal resistance R. The range A n
in the figure represents the region inwhich the heater ou5
U
acts as self-limiting heater.

80

n 60
u
0
U

P &"O 10 20 30 40 50
40
time[sec]
Fig. 9. Influence of the ambient temperature on the
attained temperature.

Fig. 7 . Relation between the attained temperature and

thermal resistance.

__
Figure 8 shows the influence of the fluctuation of
the thermal resistance on the attained temperature and t = O min. t = 5 min.
Figure 9 shows the experimental results when the heater
operated at the various ambient temperatures.
From these figures, it reveals that the hybrid
heater made for trial actually acts as the self limit-
ing heater and that as a result the heater maintains
the attained temperature constant near the Curie tem-
.perature.

t =10 min.
Fig. 10. Heating test using egg albumin.

CONCLUSIONS

Heat characteristics using the hybrid heater for

-12
0 thermia.
1000 2000 3000
TIME [sec]
Fig. 8 . Influence of the thermal resistance fluctuation
on the attained temperature,
Figure 10 shows the heating test using 4 pieces
of the heater which were immersed in egg albumin and
the temperature distribution in the egg albumin after
10 minutes heating. As shown in the figure the assembly
of the hybrid heater is capable of producing sufficient
heat to make lesions in which moderate temperature
distribution is obtained.
high quality Soft Heating have been discussed and the
suitable exciting conditions have been clarified.
It has been clear that the heater developed here
generates sufficient heat which is applicable to hyper-
Furthermore, the self-regulating ability has
been demonstrated.
REFERENCES
H. Matsuki, K. Murakami and H. Niizuma, IEEE Trans.
Magn., MAG-18, 1788, (1982)
for example, Proceedings of the 6th Annual Meeting
of Hyperthermia Group of Japan
C. Burton, M. Hill and A . Walker, IEEE Trans.
Biomed. Eng., BME-18, 104, (1971)
W.J. Atkinson, I. A. Brezovich and D.P.Chakraborty,
IEEE Tr,ans. Biomed. Eng., BME-31, 70, (1985)
A. Y. Matloubieh, R. B. Roemer and T.C.Cetas, IEEE
Trans. Biomed. Eng., BME-31, 227, (1984)