A Critical Review on the Low Power SIC MOSFET based Current Fed Inverter used in Surface Hardening Application

Generally, an induction heating system is composed of a power source (or inverter), tank circuit (or work head), and a work coil. The amount of current flowing through the coil in an industrial context is frequently significant enough to necessitate water cooling. As a result, a water-cooling system is included in the conventional setup. The power supply converts the current from the AC line into an alternating current that is tuned to match the capacitance, inductance, and resistance of the work head, coil, and part. The induction generator, along with the induction coil and the workpiece is considered as the most significant component of an induction heating system. Most of the time, this type of equipment is evaluated based on how frequently it operates and how much power it can generate at its maximum output. The amount of power required is determined by the type of material, work piece size, required amount of temperature rise, and the time required to reach the temperature. The size of the work item that needs to be heated is one such factor that influences how often the induction heating system runs. Larger workpieces benefit from a lower frequency (>10 kHz) and better heat penetration when compared to smaller workpieces, which require a higher frequency (>50 kHz) for efficient heating. The amount of heat lost from a heated workpiece increases as the work piece's temperature rises. As the temperature rises, the work piece's radiation and convection losses become more significant. When the temperature is high, insulation is frequently utilized to prevent heat loss and the quantity of power required from the induction system. The design aspects of standard induction surface hardening is examined in this article, as well as the power supply of a SiC MMOSFET-based current-fed inverter. With the advancement in power semiconductor wide bandgap semiconductor switching technology and improvement in load resonant inverter topology, it has become possible to achieve high efficient induction heating systems for application of surface hardening in today's automobile and metal industries. Surface hardening is the coupled electromagnetic thermal and metallurgical process to increase wear resistance of the specific portion of the magnetic or nonmagnetic workpiece material. Nowadays, solid-state current fed inverter topology has gained more attention when compared to voltage fed inverter. Hence, a significant research effort has been made in this research article to examine its power, control design, and performance aspects through a critical literature review and identification of research gaps defining future recommendations and motive for the researchers working in this domain.