Multi-Physics Modeling and Process Simulation for a Frequency-Shifted Solid-State Source Microwave Oven

The recent rapid growth of the semiconductor industry in development of high power microwave source has open a new promising avenue by full electronic control over the electromagnetic field towards improve the microwave heating performance. In this paper, a coupled electromagnetic and heat transfer model was built to simulate microwave heating of multiple chicken blocks with temperature-dependent dielectric properties dependent on a solid-state microwave oven. Owing to the ability of solid-state source to precisely control the frequency, the temperature distribution simulated for the fixed frequency was compared with different frequency-shifted rates increasing process and decreacsing process between 2.4 GHz and 2.5 GHz. The simulated temperature distribution was validated by comparing with experimental temperature profiles obtained using a thermal imaging camera at the end of microwave heating. The results demonstrated the heating uniformity and efficiency is highly influenced by the head and tail frequency but also the frequency shifted rate. And a specific frequency-shifted rate decreasing process between 2.4 GHz and 2.5 GHz was proposed in improving the heating performance.