Mario Righi, Jonathan Herring, Wolfgang J. R. Hoefer and UBC team
In the course of this research project a time domain model for the RF drying of wood in a vacuum kiln has been developed. The model includes the following physical phenomena involved in the drying of wood:
o Electromagnetic field distribution in the wood and the surrounding kiln,
o Energy deposition which increases the mobility of moisture in the lumber,
o Heat transfer and
o Mass transfer which, in turn, changes the dielectric properties of the wood.
The project aims at coupling all these phenomena in a self-consistent numerical model in space and time. Validation of the simulated results will be performed using the experimental RF/Vacuum Kiln available at UBC. In order to cast the numerical models into a form directly amenable to experimental verification, the algorithms were implemented for a geometry resembling that of the UBC experimental kiln.
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