SUMMARYThis paper discusses the discretisation of the eddy-current term of the magnetoquasistatic subset of the Maxwell equations in a 2D setting with radial symmetry. It is shown that dedicated finite element shape functions are needed to make sure that particular distributions of the magnetic flux density and the electric field strength can be resolved exactly. Moreover, the shape functions should obey a partition-of-unity property and should achieve a prescribed convergence order. The 2D solver with radial symmetry is applied to calculate the performance of a multi-coil induction cooking system.