Evaluation of electromagnetic absorbing capacity of materials in foundry industry

In the paper, a research on determining the standing wave ratio as a measure of electromagnetic absorbing capacity of moulding materials is presented. Preliminary tests performed using a microwave strip line showed that high-silica, chromite and magnesite moulding sands are characterised by low absorbing capacity of microwaves. It was demonstrated that microwave absorbing capacity is significantly affected by chemical compounds included in the examined substrates. It was found that use of a microwave strip line permits precise determining characteristic microwave absorbing capacities of various moulding materials and thus their suitability for microwave drying/hardening of moulds and cores or for other foundry processes. Such a microwave drier can be applied for identifying mass components and for determining e.g. base granularity by means of precisely determined reflection ratios |Γ| and positions of minimum signal values.