A NUMERICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF THE MICROWAVE-HEATING OF POLYMER MATERIALS INSIDE A RIDGE-WAVE-GUIDE

Microwave joining of polymer materials using ridge waveguides is a rel atively new area of research. In order to gain insight into the phenom ena that occur inside the ridge waveguide, together with the temperatu re distribution in the polymer material, a detailed knowledge of the p ower distribution is necessary. In this paper, Maxwell's electromagnet ic equations are coupled to the heat transfer equation and solved nume rically in order to simulate the microwave heating of a polymer materi al inside a ridge waveguide. The electromagnetic fields and power dist ribution 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 s urface of the ridge waveguide by applying the contour path technique.