A Numerical and Experimental Investigation of the Microwave Heating of Polymer Materials Inside a Ridge Waveguide

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Abstract
Microwave joining of polymer materials using ridge waveguides is a relatively new area of research. In order to gain insight into the phenomena that occur inside the ridge waveguide, together with the temperature distribution in the polymer material, a detailed knowledge of the power distribution is necessary. In this paper, Maxwell’s electromagnetic equations are coupled to the heat transfer equation and solved numerically in order to simulate the microwave heating of a polymer material inside a ridge waveguide. The electromagnetic. fields and power distribution in the polymer material within the waveguide are predicted by means of the finite-difference time-domain (FD-TD) technique. The FD-TD scheme is modified for the field component adjacent to the curved surface of the ridge waveguide by applying the contour path technique.