Tray-shape effect in a computational model of microwave heating

For microwave heating of lossy dielectric in a metal tray, the shape of the tray is shown to play an important role in the way power is dissipated. Wire-grid cubic cells loaded with RC circuits are used to model dielectric-filled square and circular trays, and a method-of-moments technique is used to solve for the currents, under excitation from a nearby antenna. The difference in power distribution between the two shapes is examined using three values of loss tangent. The study, carried out under two different excitations, indicates that circular trays produce more uniform distributions of dissipated power.