Study of the high heating efficiency and uniformity by multi-port sweep frequency microwave irradiations

As a clean energy, microwaves have been widely used in thermal engineering. However, in the traditional microwave heating process, it is difficult to obtain high heating efficiency and uniformity. In this paper, a novel multi-port sweep frequency heating method is proposed to solve this problem. Multi-physics modelling and experiment are carried out to study the mechanism, efficiency, and uniformity of multi-port sweep frequency heating. The simulation and experimental results agree well, which demonstrates the proposed method can make heating more efficient and uniform. In addition, important factors affecting the heating efficiency and uniformity are also discussed, including the multi-port and frequency sweep effects, the polarization direction of the electromagnetic waves, and the bandwidth of the sweep frequency. This study can help us make better use of microwave energy.