Wireless power supply for mobile aluminium furnaces

The metal casting industry is continuously pursuing improved energy efficiency of its processes. As a contribution to this effort, this paper describes a new concept of furnaces equipped with wireless power transfer (WPT) technology. The WPT system acts as a versatile power supply for small mobile aluminium transfer furnaces in order to maintain melt temperature during transfer and degassing. 100 kW system design and test results are presented, which were obtained in the frame of the NIWE Project, funded by European Union (FP7, grant agreement No. 296024). Two 50-kW grid-tied converter are implemented as a three-level NPC bridge with NTV modulation. HF converteres (which feeds WPT coils) are a three-leg interleaved half-bridge. Test results have shown high power transfer efficiency of over 92% and confirmed the possibility to apply the experience from wireless charging of electric vehicles to high-power industry applications.