An induction cooktop has a high frequency power source that is applied to a coil. I was wondering if you could take the high frequency electronics from a cooktop or even buy / design a high frequency power source and instead of a coil take a 50 or 200 foot long wire and attach to rebar to heat it to a temperature of only about 30 degrees Celsius in an environment that is -30 degrees Celsius?
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depending what you want to achieve, then this might be interesting : https://engineering.stackexchange.com/q/25692/10902 – Solar Mike Jul 20 '19 at 07:22
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Induction heating works by making a big magnetic field. The field induces currents to flow in the thing heated up, and the current flowing through the resistance of thing makes heat.
Why not just pass current through the rebar directly to heat it up? This would be more efficient.
If you can't actually get the the rebar, because it is inside some concrete, then the induction method may be useful. But, it's hard to make a magnetic field in a big volume, like hundreds of feet of rebar.
As far as the amount of power that you can deliver with induction heating, it is only limited by the amount of power it takes to create the magnetic field. Depending on the losses to the -30 degree ambient, maybe you could heat up the rebar that much. You would have to model the heat flow and the magnetic fields for your particular situation.
Nick
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Search " induction heat pipeline" , there are references to heating for field welding. Also , pipelines have been heated full length by induction ( a conductor is buried next to the pipe) to warm contents to keep it fluid ; but a reference did not show in one search.
blacksmith37
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