The effect of conductivity on hotspots

Abstract

In industrial applications of microwave heating, it has been observed that rather than the heating taking place uniformly, regions of high temperature, called hot-spots, tend to form. Depending on the industrial application, these can be either desirable or undesirable, and hence a theoretical understanding of the properties of the material that lead to hotspot formation is necessary. It has been shown in previous studies that hotspot formation is a product of the nonlinear dependence of microwave energy absorption by the material on temperature. It is shown in the present work that the conductivity of the material can have a significant effect on hotspot formation and can, if large enough, stop a hotspot from forming.