Computer simulation of radio frequency heating for insect control in dried soybeans

Abstract. Radio frequency (RF) heating is considered as a potential postharvest technology for disinfesting legumes. However, the non-uniformity in RF heating is still a major problem in developing effective RF heat treatments for pest control and other applications. It is necessary to systematically study the RF heating characteristics and evaluate treatment parameters to improve the RF heating uniformity in agricultural products based on the validated computer simulation model. A computer simulation model was developed with the finite element-based commercial software, COMSOL, to analyse the temperature distributions. The dried soybeans packed in a rectangular plastic container were used to determine the heating uniformity and validate the simulation model using a 27.12 MHz, 6 kW RF system. Both simulated and experimental results showed similar heating patterns in RF treated soybeans, in which corners and edges were more heated and the temperature values were higher in the lower part of the container. The simulation results demonstrated that the RF heating uniformity could be improved using a similar dielectric material around the samples, a smaller top plate area (similar to the sample size), and placing the samples in the middle of the two plate electrodes. The simulation model developed in this study could be applied to improve the RF heating uniformity and to optimize the treatment parameters.