Critical conditions for melting of metallic wire in induction heating system through numerical simulation and experiments

Induction heating is a novel energy source that can be utilized in the melting of metallic wires for the development of green manufacturing processes such as drop-casting and additive manufacturing. The present work aims to find out the critical radius of the feedstock wire to be melted through an induction heating system. An analytical model is developed to find an initial assessment of the feasible parameters and assists the 3D coupled electromagnetic-thermal model to study the melting behaviour of the mild steel wire. Through these models, the time required to reach the melting point of the wire for various process conditions has been investigated. The coil current and the number of turns of the coil primarily influence the melting duration of the wire. The experiments on a high-frequency induction heating system suggests that the critical wire size of 1.6 mm transfer the metal droplets at 550 A coil current, 15 mm inner coil radius, 3-turn induction coil and 353 kHz frequency. At this point, the finite element model acts as an aid to develop the experimental system and provides satisfactory results when compared with experimental data. This work effectively presents a mathematical framework where critical size of wire is identified to create molten droplets in a specific induction heating system.