Whenever solid materials are heated enough, they will melt and then vaporize to a gas. Certain materials will even go directly from the solid to the gas phase, a process referred to as sublimation or ablation. If the material is heated strongly enough, there will be significant material removal. Today, we will look at how you can model this process in COMSOL Multiphysics.

Over the last several weeks, we’ve published a series of blog posts addressing the various domain and boundary conditions available for wave electromagnetics simulation in the frequency domain; as well as modeling, meshing, and solving options. In this blog post, I will tie all of this information together and provide an introduction to the various types of problems that you can solve in the RF and Wave Optics modules.

When solving wave electromagnetics problems with either the RF or Wave Optics modules, we use the finite element method to solve the governing Maxwell’s equations. In this blog post, we will look at the various modeling, meshing, solving, and postprocessing options available to you and when you should use them.

Today, we are pleased to introduce a new guest author, Vincent Bruyere of SIMTEC, who shares insight into the modeling of induction furnaces. Induction heating has become an important process in many applications, from cooking meals to manufacturing. It is valued for its precision and efficiency along with being a non-contact form of heating. In this guest post, I will describe how to build an induction furnace model in COMSOL Multiphysics and demonstrate how it can enhance your design.

The communication network wasn’t designed to carry the amount of traffic that is currently transmitted around the world on a daily basis. With the rapid expansion in data traffic and the exponential growth in high-speed communications, the current network is coming under increasing strain. At Bell Labs, researchers are looking into ways to improve energy efficiency through the use of optimized electronics cooling and energy harvesting technology. Two new energy-savings approaches developed by the group promise significant savings.

Radiofrequency tissue ablation is a medical procedure that uses targeted heat for a variety of medical purposes, including killing cancerous cells, shrinking collagen, and alleviating pain. The process involves applying mid- to high-frequency alternating current directly to the tissue, raising the temperature in a focused region near the applicator. We can simulate this process with COMSOL Multiphysics and the AC/DC and Heat Transfer modules. In today’s blog post, we will go over some key concepts for modeling this procedure.

A question that we are asked all of the time is if COMSOL Multiphysics can model laser-material interactions and heating. The answer, of course, depends on exactly what type of problem you want to solve, as different modeling techniques are appropriate for different problems. Today, we will discuss various approaches for simulating the heating of materials illuminated by laser light.

Whenever we are solving a wave electromagnetics problem in COMSOL Multiphysics, we build a model that is composed of domains and boundary conditions. Within the domains, we use various material models to represent a wide range of substances. However, from a mathematical point of view, all of these different materials end up being handled identically within the governing equation. Let’s take a look at these various material models and discuss when to use them.

No matter how much you refine the mesh at that corner in your geometry, the electromagnetic field that you are computing never seems to settle on a converged value. Is this a problem? If so, what can you do about it? Read on to find out.

We like to feature a certain waveguide model in our RF and microwave heating webinars because it illustrates the concept in a way that is easy to understand. Here it is again, serving as a quick intro to modeling RF and microwave heating.