The present invention relates to a microwave heating device and a microwave guiding tube thereof, and particularly to a microwave heating device and a microwave guiding tube thereof that may heat both high microwave absorbing materials and low microwave absorbing materials uniformly.
Conventional microwave heating devices in the prior art can be mainly classified into the following three types. First, closed resonant cavity: the principle of the closed resonant cavity is to move or rotate a heated object in the closed resonant cavity to reduce the heating unevenness for the heated object caused by the microwave hot spots and cold spots in the closed resonant cavity. Second, open resonance cavity: the principle is similar to the closed resonance cavity, the heated object is heated by a continuous flow through standing wave hot spots in the open resonance cavity, the heated object is ionized, and the closed resonance cavity is mainly used in light source production such as sulfur lamps or disposal. Third, travelling wave heater: the principle is to heat the heated object by a travelling wave along the microwave transmission path to avoid heating unevenness caused by hot spots and cold spot effects of standing waves.
Among them, the closed resonance cavity and the open resonance cavity use the standing waves to heat the heated object. However, the standing wave will form obvious hot spots and cold spots in the cavity, and the heated object cannot be heated uniformly. In practice, it can only be applied to markets with low unit prices, such as wood dehydration or tobacco drying.
Although the travelling wave heater does not form obvious hot and cold spots, when the heated object is a low microwave absorption material, the travelling wave heater can uniformly heat the heated object. However, when the heated object is a high microwave absorbing material, the microwave energy will be quickly absorbed by the heated object to be heated which is close to the heating source, resulting in that the heated object which is far from the heating source cannot be sufficiently heated, and the object to be heated cannot be uniformly heated. Therefore, the conventional microwave heating device in the prior art needs to be improved.
To overcome the shortcomings of the conventional microwave heating devices, the present invention provides a microwave heating device and a microwave guiding tube thereof.
The main objective of the present invention is to provide a microwave heating device and a microwave guiding tube thereof, and particularly to a microwave heating device and a microwave guiding tube thereof that may heat both high microwave absorbing materials and low microwave absorbing materials uniformly.
The microwave heating device in accordance with the present invention has
a microwave guide tube forming a wave travelling path and having
two microwave transmitting modules respectively disposed on two opposite ends of the microwave guide tube along the wave travelling path; and
a transmission module extending through the at least one conveying opening pair along the conveying direction.
The microwave guiding tube of the microwave heating device in accordance with the present invention has
at least one heating segment and each one of the at least one heating segment having
at least one conveying opening pair, and each one of the at least one conveying opening pair having two conveying openings respectively formed through the front opening wall and the rear opening wall of the at least one heating segment;
at least one waveguide plate pair disposed in the at least one heating segment, and each one of the at least one waveguide plate pair having
Other objects, advantages and novel features of the present invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.
With reference to
In the first embodiment of the present invention, the microwave guide tube 10 has multiple heating segments 11 and multiple connecting segments 12. The heating segments 11 are arranged in parallel at spaced intervals along a conveying direction D of the transmission module 30. Each connecting segment 12 is connected to two adjacent ones of the heating segments 11. In the first embodiment of the present invention, each heating segment 11 may be a straight pipe, and each connecting segment 12 may be a curved pipe. With the heating segments 11 and the connecting segments 12, the microwave guide tube 10 is formed into a S-shaped tube to have a S-shaped wave travelling path. Furthermore, the microwave guide tube 10 may be a pipe whose two open ends communicate with each other, so the microwave guide tube 10 may only have one single tubular heating segment 11.
The two microwave transmitting modules 20 respectively are connected to two opposite ends of the microwave guide tube 10 along the wave travelling path. Each one of the two microwave transmitting modules 20 emits microwaves from one of the two opposite ends of the microwave guide tube 10 to the other one of the two opposite ends of the microwave guide tube 10 along the wave travelling path of the microwave guide tube 10. When a heated object is heated in the microwave guide tube 10, even if a distance between the heated object and one of the two microwave transmitting modules 20 is different, the heating power of each heated object by the responsive one of the microwave transmitting modules 20 is different, and the difference can be complementary to the other one of the two microwave transmitting modules 20, making a total beating power to each heated object more uniform. Specifically, if the percentage of microwave energy absorbed by the heated object is defined as the use efficiency, the maximum value (Pmax) of the microwave energy absorbed by the heated object minus the minimum value (Pmin) along the wave travelling path divided by the average value (Paverage) is defined as the uniformity. That is, the uniformity (%) is
From the calculation results in Table 1, it can be known that under the same use efficiency, the use of two microwave transmitting modules 20 can greatly improve the uniformity of heating.
In the first embodiment of the present invention, each one of the two microwave transmitting modules 20 emits microwaves with a frequency of 2450 MHz toward the microwave guide tube 10, and a cross-sectional shape of the microwave guide tube 10 corresponds to the microwave at the frequency, and adopts a WR340 rectangular cross section defined by the Electronic Industries Alliance (EIA). The rectangular cross section allows the microwave to work in TE10 mode to reduce complexity, but the microwave frequency emitted by each one of the two microwave transmitting modules 20 is not limited to 2450 MHz.
Furthermore, in the first embodiment of the present invention, each microwave transmitting module 20 has a microwave source 21, a circulator 22, a directional coupler 23, and a water loader 24. The microwave source 21 and the directional coupler 23 are respectively disposed at two ends of the microwave transmitting module 20. The circulator 22 is connected to the microwave source 21 and the directional coupler 23. The water loader 24 is connected to one side of the circulator 22. The directional coupler 23 is connected to one of the two opposite ends of the microwave guide tube 10. The circulator 22 controls the microwaves transmitting in a specific direction by using the gyro-magnetic phenomenon, thereby protecting the microwave source 21. The directional coupler 23 can measure the microwave power transmitted by the microwave transmitting module 20 toward the microwave guide tube 10 and the microwave power transmitted by the microwave guide tube 10 toward the microwave transmitting module 20.
With reference to
In detail, with reference to
The transmission module 30 extends through each conveying opening pair 13 of the microwave guide tube 10 along the conveying direction D. Preferably, the transmission module 30 is a conveying belt, and makes the heated object pass through each heating segment 11 of the microwave guide tube 10 sequentially via the conveying opening pairs 13 along the conveying direction D. During the process of passing through each heating segment 11 of the microwave guide tube 10, the heated object absorbs the microwave energy emitted by the microwave transmitting modules 20 and is heated.
In the first embodiment of the present invention, each conveying opening 131 of the microwave guide tube 10 has a middle line 1311, a top peripheral edge 1312, and a bottom peripheral edge 1313. The top peripheral edge 1312 and the bottom peripheral edge 1313 are respectively disposed on two sides of the middle line 1311. A distance between the top peripheral edge 1312 and the bottom peripheral edge 1313 is defined as an opening width of the conveying opening 131. The opening widths of the opposite ends of each conveying opening 131 along the wave travelling path are respectively tapered, thereby improving the impedance matching effect of the microwave on the wave travelling path in the microwave guide tube 10, so that the heated object in the microwave guide tube 10 is heated more uniformly.
The specific shapes of the opposite ends of each conveying opening 131 are described as follows: the top peripheral edge 1312 of each conveying opening 131 has a top main segment 61 and two upper necked segments. The top main segment 61 extends along the wave travelling path, and the two upper necked segments are respectively connected to the opposite ends of the top main segment 61 along the wave travelling path. The bottom peripheral edge 1313 of each conveying opening 131 has a bottom main segment 62 and two lower necked segments. The bottom main segment 62 extends along the wave travelling path, and the two lower necked segments are connected to two opposite ends of the bottom main segment 62 along the wave travelling path. The upper and lower necked segments of each conveying opening 131 along the wave travelling path at a responsive one of the two opposite ends of the conveying opening 131 extend toward the middle line 1311, and two distal ends of the upper and lower necked segments are connected to each other to form one of the two opposite ends of the conveying opening 131. In order to further adjust the impedance matching, the shape of the upper and lower necked segments may be one of the following four types:
First, linear gradation: each necked segment (i.e. upper necked segment and lower necked segment) is a straight line, that is, each upper necked segment is a first upper straight segment 63, and each lower necked segment is a first bottom straight segment 64.
Second, multi-vertex structure: each necked segment (i.e. upper necked segment and lower necked segment) has more than two connected straight segments, such as a second embodiment of this present invention as shown in
Among them, the first upper straight segment 63A is connected to an end of the second upper straight segment 65A extending toward the middle line 1311A. In the second embodiment of the present invention, a length of each straight segment and the included angle with the middle line 1311A can be designed according to the theory of Chebyshev Multi-section Matching Transformer to reduce the size of the system in the use of the frequency and get the best match within the range.
Third, curvature gradient: each necked segment (i.e. upper necked segment and lower necked segment) is an arc; for example, in a third embodiment of the present invention as shown in
Fourth, stepped structure: each necked segment (i.e. the upper necked segment and the lower necked segment) is a stepped shape. For example, in a fourth embodiment of the present invention as shown in
In the foregoing embodiments, the shapes and positions of the upper and lower necked segments of each conveying opening 131 are symmetrical to each other, but are not limited thereto.
With reference to
First, when the microwave absorption characteristics of the heated object are strong, the waveguide plate pair 14 can still uniformly heat the heated object.
Second, when a metal object appears in a conventional microwave guide tube, the microwave in the conventional microwave guide tube will be completely reflected by the metal object back to an incident end. That is, the impedance fails, resulting in the conventional microwave guide tube not able to heat a heated object that contains metal. However, even if the heated object in the microwave guide tube 10 of the present invention is mixed with metal, the microwave can still bypass the metal object as usual and uniformly heat the heated object.
By providing the waveguide plate pair 14, the present invention can process materials with strong microwave absorption characteristics and heated objects that contain metal, thereby enlarging the range of materials that can be heated by the present invention. Therefore, the present invention can heat heated objects with high unit price that the conventional microwave heating devices cannot heat, such as wet circuit boards, various electronic products containing metal components, semiconductor wafers containing metal, solar wafers containing metal wires, and wet clothing with metal accessories, and this may increase the value of the present invention.
In the embodiments of the present invention, the positions of the waveguide plate pairs 14 and the conveying opening pairs 13 correspond to each other. Specifically, the center of mass of each waveguide plate 141 and the shape center of each conveying opening 131 in each heating segment 11 are located on the same plane, but it is not limited to this. As long as the position of the waveguide plate 141 is substantially the same as the position of the conveying opening 131, the waveguide plate 141 can adjust the impedance matching of the microwave guide tube 10, and the heated objects can be heated evenly when passing through the microwave guide tube 10.
In detail, in the travelling wave heating method, the magnitude of the microwave energy in the heated object along a travelling direction is Ppropagation(z)=P0e−αz. Along the travelling direction of the microwave, the amount of energy absorbed by the material within a unit distance is Pabsorptoin(z)=αP0e−αz, wherein P0 is the initial incident energy, α is the attenuation coefficient, and the value of α is not only determined by the dielectric constant and dielectric loss of the material, but also by the frequency of the travelling wave and the mode used.
With reference to
The advantage of transforming the travelling wave mode from the original fundamental mode TE10 to the parallel electric field mode is that the attenuation coefficient can be adjusted. So even if the microwave absorption characteristics of the heated object are strong, the waveguide plate pairs 14 can heat the heated object uniformly. The problem that the conventional microwave heating device can only heat front edges of two ends of the heated object is resolved. In addition, the parallel electric field mode enables the microwave to bypass the metal object, and thereby even if the heated object is mixed with a metal object, the microwave can still bypass the metal object and uniformly heat the heated object as usual.
Furthermore, in the embodiments of the present invention, the thicknesses of two opposite ends of each waveguide plate 141 are gradually reduced toward a center away from the waveguide plate 141 to further improve impedance matching. In order to further adjust the impedance matching, the thickness reduction type of the two opposite ends of the waveguide plate 141 is also the same as that of the two opposite ends of the conveying opening 131 as described above and includes four types:
First, linear gradation: the specific shapes of the two opposite ends of each waveguide plate 141 are shown in
Second, multi-vertex structure: with reference to
Third, curvature gradient: with reference to
Fourth, stepped structure: with reference to
With reference to
With reference to
With reference to
With reference to
In summary, the present invention provides a microwave transmitting module 20 at each one of the two opposite ends of the microwave guide tube 10 to improve the uniformity of the heating of the high microwave absorbing material in the microwave guide tube 10, and can improve the heat treatment of the heated object of high unit price.
Even though numerous characteristics and advantages of the present invention have been set forth in the foregoing descriptions, together with details of the structure and function of the present invention, the disclosure is illustrative only, and changes may be made in detail, especially in matters of shape, size, and arrangement of parts within the principles of the present invention to the full extent indicated by the broad general meaning of the terms in which the appended claims are expressed.
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