Power consumption of skull melting, part I: Analytical aspects and experiments

An analytical model for a Skull melting set-up is presented, which describe s the power absorption in the melt and the losses in the inductor coil and the cold crucible. A strong dependence of the relative size of these quanti ties on the applied frequency has been found. Above a characteristic freque ncy, where the skin depth equals about one half of the melt radius, only a small percentage of the overall power (typically 10% for oxide melts) is lo st in the copper coil and the crucible. Below this frequency, the relative part of these losses increases considerably and can prevent a successful Sk ull melting experiment. Analytical results are in good agreement with exper imental (calorimetric) measurements of the power consumption in a typical S kull run (cubic stabilized zirconia), and with corresponding numerical simu lations of the Skull process. The thermal conductivity of the Skull crust w as estimated from experimental data.