A Study on the Development and Application of a Power Conversion System for Artificial Dental Sintering Furnaces

This paper proposes a power conversion system for dental zirconia sintering equipment and verifies its performance using an actual sintering furnace load. Conventional sintering systems often employ a phase-controlled alternating current to alternating current (AC-AC) converter, which suffers from distorted current waveforms, low power factor, and limited temperature control accuracy. To address these issues, a two-stage topology is adopted, consisting of an alternating current to direct current (AC-DC) power factor correction (PFC) circuit and a DC–DC buck chopper. The front-end AC–DC stage ensures stable DC rectification with high input power quality, while the rear DC–DC stage enables precise current regulation to the heating element based on the target temperature profile. Simulation and experimental results confirm stable control of power quality, heating current, and chamber temperature, and validate accurate temperature tracking under various sintering schedules.