Eddy Current Computation in Translational Motion Conductive Plate of an Induction Heater With Consideration of Finite Length Extremity Effects

An electromagnetic model is proposed to compute translational motion eddy currents in a conductive plate. The eddy currents are due to the movement of the plate in a dc magnetic field created by a permanent magnet (PM) inductor. First, the magnetic field, due to the PMs, is computed in three dimensions, where the iron yokes' influence is considered because of the method of images. Then, the motional eddy currents are computed, such that the edge effects are correctly considered through an iterative procedure that uses magnetic images. The computations are very fast, and the obtained results are close to those issued from the three-dimensional finite-element method and the experiments.