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FDTD Simulation of Microwave Sintering in Large (500/4000 Liter) Multimode Cavities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 February 2011

Marta Subirats ,
Magdy F. Iskander ,
Mikel J White  and
Jim Kiggans
Marta Subirats
Affiliation:
Electrical Engineering Department, Uniersity Of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112
Magdy F. Iskander
Affiliation:
Electrical Engineering Department, Uniersity Of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112
Mikel J White
Affiliation:
Electrical Engineering Department, Uniersity Of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112
Jim Kiggans
Affiliation:
Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN 37831-6087
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Abstract

To help develop large-scale microwave-sintering processes and to explore the feasibility of the commercial utilization of this technology, we used the recently developed multi-grid 3D Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) code and the 3D Finite-Difference Heat-Transfer (FDHT) code to determine the electromagnetic (EM) fields, the microwave power deposition, and temperature-distribution patterns in layers of samples processed in large-scale multimode microwave cavities.

This paper presents results obtained from the simulation of realistic sintering experiments carried out in both 500 and 4000 liter furnaces operating at 2.45 GHz. The ceramic ware being sintered is placed inside a cubical crucible box made of rectangular plates of various ceramic materials with various electrical and thermal properties. The crucible box can accommodate up to 5 layers of ceramic samples with 16 to 20 cup-like samples per layer. Simulation results provided guidelines regarding selection of crucible-box materials, cruciblebox geometry, number of layers, shelf material between layers, and the fraction volume of the load vs. that of the furnace.

Results from the FDTD and FDHT simulations will be presented and various tradeoffs involved in designing an effective microwave-processing system will be compared graphically.

Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 430: Symposium O – Microwave Processing of Materials V , 1996 , 29
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 1996

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References

1. Iskander, M. F., Octavio, A., Andrae, M., Kimrey, H. D., and Lee Walsh, M., FDTD Simulation of Microwave Sintering of Ceramics in Multimode Cavities, IEEE Trans. On Microwave Theory and Techniques, Vol.42, NO.5, MAY 1994.Google Scholar
2. White, M. J., Iskander, M. F., Huang, Z., and Kimrey, H. D., Development of a Multi-Grid FDTD Code for Three Dimensional Applications, IEEE Trans. Ant. and Prop., submitted for publication.Google Scholar
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