Model Stirrer Based on a Multi-Material Turntable for Microwave Processing Materials

Jinghua Ye; Tao Hong; Yuanyuan Wu; Li Wu; Yinhong Liao; Huacheng Zhu; Yang Yang; Kama Huang

doi:10.3390/ma10020095

Model Stirrer Based on a Multi-Material Turntable for Microwave Processing Materials

Materials (Basel). 2017 Jan 24;10(2):95. doi: 10.3390/ma10020095.

Authors

Jinghua Ye¹, Tao Hong², Yuanyuan Wu³, Li Wu⁴, Yinhong Liao⁵, Huacheng Zhu⁶, Yang Yang⁷, Kama Huang⁸

Affiliations

¹ College of Electronic and Information Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, China. 2015322050010@stu.scu.edu.cn.
² College of Electronical Information Engineering, China West Normal University, Nanchong 637002, China. scu_mandela@163.com.
³ College of Information Science & Technology, Chengdu University of Technology, Chengdu 610000, China. Yuanyuanwu29@163.com.
⁴ College of Electronic and Information Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, China. wuli1307@scu.edu.cn.
⁵ College of Electronic and Information Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, China. liaoyinhong2006@126.com.
⁶ College of Electronic and Information Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, China. hczhu@scu.edu.cn.
⁷ College of Electronic and Information Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, China. yyang@scu.edu.cn.
⁸ College of Electronic and Information Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, China. kmhuang@scu.edu.cn.

Abstract

Microwaves have been widely used in the treatment of materials, such as heating, drying, and sterilization. However, the heating in the commonly used microwave applicators is usually uneven. In this paper, a novel multi-material turntable structure is creatively proposed to improve the temperature uniformity in microwave ovens. Three customized turntables consisting of polyethylene (PE) and alumina, PE and aluminum, and alumina and aluminum are, respectively, utilized in a domestic microwave oven in simulation. During the heating process, the processed material is placed on a fixed Teflon bracket which covers the constantly rotating turntable. Experiments are conducted to measure the surface and point temperatures using an infrared thermal imaging camera and optical fibers. Simulated results are compared qualitatively with the measured ones, which verifies the simulated models. Compared with the turntables consisting of a single material, a 26%-47% increase in temperature uniformity from adapting the multi-material turntable can be observed for the microwave-processed materials.

Keywords: heating uniformity; materials processing; microwave heating; multi-material turntable.