Modeling of an industrial microwave furnace for metal casting applications

Microwaves can be used efficiently for casting metals using specially designed industrial microwave ovens. Their designs, however, is a challenging multi-physics problem that would require addressing concurrently electromagnetic, thermal, material and chemical issues. In this paper, a simplified model has been developed to model the operation of an industrial microwave oven. Our EM and thermal results were obtained using FEM modeling and have been experimentally validated via a modular chamber using the thermal and electrical measured material properties at elevated temperatures. Such modeling success is very valuable that would help in further optimizing the microwave metal melting technology.