Experimental Study and Simulation on Microwave Drilling of Metals and Glasses

Abstract

Microwave heating is being developed to apply for a variety of engineering applications in the last few years due to some special advantages of using microwave. This paper presents a study on attempting microwave drilling of materials especially metals, as metal processing with microwave was a difficult task due to reflection of microwaves by metals at room temperature. A special fixture was developed to study the microwave drilling on metals and non metals and tests were conducted on Aluminium, Copper, Mild steel and Borosilicate glass inside a domestic microwave oven. Metals were drilled with microwave hybrid heating and glass was drilled with plasma generated through microwave. The specimens were characterised through SEM and simulations were done on microwave heating of metals and glass in a similar environment to drilling.

Keywords: Microwave Drilling, SEM