CFD analysis of the convection flow in the pan during induction heating and gas range heating

One difference between induction heating (IH) and gas range heating (GRH) is that, because the heating location of the pan is different, the convection in the pan is different. In particular, in cooking situations in which solids are mixed with liquids, such as the boiling of soup containing solid foods, the natural convection flow in the pan may affect food quality. The convection in the pan during IH and GRH was analyzed by using computational fluid dynamics (CFD), and the temperature distribution and the flow velocity distribution in the pan were obtained. These results were then compared with the measurement results. In GRH, the heat flux at the wall of the pan was obtained by experiment, and it was used for the analysis as a boundary condition. In IH, the heat generation distribution obtained by electromagnetic field analysis was used for the analysis as the boundary condition. Differences in convection flow in the pan during IH and GRH were observed by CFD modeling especially at the initial stage of heating. The simulated convection in the pan showed the same tendency as the captured movement of the tracer particle using flow visualization.