Determination of electrical properties of materials used in microwaveheating of foundry moulds and cores

Abstract

The environment-friendly and cost efficient microwave heating of moulding and core sands opens possibilities to use plastics and wood for structures of foundry instrumentation, where transparency to microwaves is the main requirement. Presented are results of a preliminary research on determining possibilities to use selected materials in microwave field. From the viewpoint of specificity of this process, the basic parameter is ability to absorb or transmit microwave radiation. Determined were the following electrical properties: tangent of dielectric loss angle and permittivity of selected materials. The materials were classified according to their transparency to electromagnetic radiation in order to choose the ones suitable for tooling applied in foundry processes.

Keywords

• electrical properties
• permittivity
• dielectric loss factor
• microwaves
• foundry tooling