Thermal Behavior of an Electric Furnace: Process Simulation

The change in Ecuador's energy matrix has led to new approaches for the optimal use of non-renewable resources and the development of alternative sources of energy. One of the areas of change has been the domestic cooking and the introduction of two types of induction cookers: with furnace and without furnace included. In this work the thermal behavior of the furnace integrated to these induction cookers is analyzed, in order to predict the inside temperature distribution. The comparison between the experimental data measured with the help of the KPT100 thermocouples and the numerical data obtained through CFD computational dynamics is done in the CFX module of ANSYS WORKBENCH 16.0. A methodology based on simulation is presented in order to estimate the internal temperature in four critical points of the furnace and verify if there are heat losses. In addition, the processes of heat transfer by radiation are considered for the simulation. The numerical results obtained by simulation and the experimental measurements of temperatura at these four points are of comparable magnitude. The average relative global error was less than 6%, acceptable for this type of engineering application.