Microwave heating: Fundasmentals and application in surface modification of metallic materials - A review

Recently microwave assisted materials processing earningvoguedue to inherent gains in terms of time and energy efficiency, substantially reduced process cycle time, revamp mechanical properties, and beneath environmental hazards. During processing of materials through microwaves, equally electric and magnetic energy is linearly transferred within materials via interfacing interaction between molecules. Microwave processing is pertinent to vast variety of materials including metal matrix composites (MMC), fibre reinforced polymer (FRP), alloys, ceramics, metals, pulverize metallurgy, metal coating/ cladding etc. This paper presents several key fundamentals of microwaves and concisely depicts the studied microwave materials interaction mechanism. Microwave energy are extensively used, notably in the areas like coating, glazing and cladding on various metallic substrate materials like mild steel, and different grades of stainless steel (SS-316, SS-316L, SS-304, AISI-420) etc. Microwave applications in improving the surface properties of metallic materials are briefly reviewed in this paper. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.