The Proximity Effect Its Application to the Concentration of Heating Currents in Predetermined Strips

This paper describes methods of concentrating heating currents used for any industrial operation, such as welding, in predetermined strips of conducting plates, pipes, or other shapes. The method is to so place the shapes in close proximity to each other, or to auxiliary conductors, and to so interconnect the shapes with sources of alternating, or oscillatory, current of moderately high frequency that the heating current concentrates largely in adjacent strips in close proximity, in which the current flows in opposite directions in the two adjacent strips. Briefly stated, the method is to use an enhanced ``proximity effect'' to control the distribution of heating currents in bodies. The paper contains curves which have been worked out to illustrate the control of the distribution of the heating current densities by means of the proximity effect.