Impact of filled materials on the heating uniformity and safety of microwave heating solid stack materials

Abstract

Microwave heating of solid stack materials is common but bothered by problems of uneven heating and electric discharge phenomena. In this paper, a method introducing fluid materials with different relative permittivity is proposed to improve the heating uniformity and safety of solid stack materials. Simulations have been computed based on the finite element method (FEM) and validated by experiments. Simulation results show that the introducing of fluid materials with proper relative permittivity does improve the heating uniformity and safety. Fluid materials with the larger real part of relative permittivity could obviously lower the maximum modulus value of the electric field for about 23 times, and will lower the coefficient of variation (COV) in general, although in small ranges that it has fluctuated. Fluid materials with the larger imaginary part of relative permittivity, in a range from 0 to 0.3, can make a more efficient heating and it could lower the maximum modulus value of the electric field by 34 to 55% on the whole studied range. However, the larger imaginary part of relative permittivity will cause worse heating uniformity as the COV rises by 246.9% in the same process. The computed results are discussed and methods to reach uniform and safe heating through introducing fluid materials with proper relative permittivity are proposed.