A New Approach to Modeling Focused Infrared Heating Based on Quantum Mechanical Formulations

Abstract

The focused infrared (IR) heating method is an energy-efficient heating technology for engineering applications. Numerical models of focused IR heating technology have been introduced based on the theory of ray optics. The ray optics-based IR models have provided good simulation results; however, they are mathematically complex because the ray optics models need to account for the complex paths of the IR rays and the geometrical information of the heating devices. This paper presents a new approach for modeling the focused IR heating method using quantum mechanical formulations. Even though the IR heating condition is not a pure quantum phenomenon, it is efficient to employ the concept of the superposition principle of wave functions in IR distribution modeling. The proposed model makes an abstraction by replacing the distributed IR rays with an energy particle with independent wave functions at different eigenstates, based on the Schrödinger equation. The new approach results in a simpler equation for modeling the focused IR heating method. An electrical-thermal simulation of the focused IR heating with the new model provides results in good agreement with the experimental data.