Theoretical and experimental investigation of microwave thawing of frozen layer using a microwave oven (effects of layered configurations and layer thickness)

The thawing of layered sample due to microwave energy (2.45 GHz) in oven has been investigated theoretically and experimentally. Based on a model combining of the electromagnetic field and thermal model, it is shown that the variation of layered configurations and unfrozen layer thickness changes the degree of temperature level within layered sample as well as the thawing rate. This is due to the changing of characteristics of dielectric properties of phase change materials during microwave thawing process. The simulated results are in agreement with the experimental results for the microwave thawing process.