An Analytical Approximation for Continuous Flow Microwave Heating of Liquids

Both a numerical and an analytical models were developed to simulate temperature profiles in continuous laminar pipe flow during microwave heating. Fully developed velocity and thermally developing conditions were assumed. The numerical solution was obtained by first solving Maxwell equations and then by coupling them with the energy balance for the flowing fluid. On the other hand, the same problem was solved analytically under the simplifying assumption foreseeing uniform heat generation inside the pipe. With the aim of reducing computational efforts, numerical and analytical results were compared in order to investigate conditions for which the two models allowed to recover the same temperature patterns. Thus, it has been shown that suitable conditions can be found for which the simplified analytical model can lead to an easy way to predict the heat transfer through the pipe