Science and heavy industry · In service today
Induction heating
Heats a metal billet far more efficiently than a copper coil.
The record behind induction heating
Induction heaters with high-Tc magnets · SN Applied SciencesSuperconductors in induction heating
Heating an aluminum billet before extrusion is normally done by inducing current in it with an alternating copper coil, and a large share of the electricity goes into heating the coil rather than the billet. The superconducting version inverts the problem: hold a strong steady field with a superconducting magnet and rotate the billet inside it. The billet sees a changing field and heats. The magnet dissipates nothing. The efficiency difference is large enough to pay for the cryogenics in a plant running continuously.
What is stopping induction heating
Mechanical, mostly. Spinning a heavy metal billet inside a magnet bore at production rates is a machine-design problem, and the payback only works on a duty cycle that a high-volume extrusion line has and a job shop does not.
What a better material would change for induction heating
Run the magnet on a simpler cooler and the payback shortens, which is the only number that matters to a plant manager choosing between this and the copper coil already bolted to the floor.
Near induction heating, in science and heavy industry
SuperMatics is a platform infrastructure company for superconducting devices: software that finds the material and the process, lab work that makes and measures it, and pilot manufacturing with industrial partners.If you are working on something in this field and a material is what stands in the way, tell us about it.