Simulation of Induction Heat Treating

This article describes the applications of induction heat treatment of metals, including normalizing, annealing, hardening, and tempering and stress relieving. It discusses the simulation techniques of the electromagnetic and thermal processes that occur during induction heat treating. The article explains the finite-difference method, finite-element method, mutual impedance method, and boundary-element method for the numerical computation of the induction heat treating processes. It also discusses the direct and indirect coupling approaches for coupling the electromagnetic and heat-transfer problems. Modern computer simulation techniques are capable of effectively simulating electromagnetic and thermal phenomena for many processes that involve electromagnetic induction. The article considers the challenges faced by developers of modern simulation software.