Investigation of Distribution of Thermal Fields under Discrete Action of Microwave Electromagnetic Field on Extended Objects Made of Cured Carbon-Filled Plastic

The results of hardening modification of cured polymer composite materials in a microwave electromagnetic field have been analyzed. It has been shown that a necessary factor for obtaining the desired effect is a combination of the energy flux density and exposure time, which ensure heating of a material to a temperature of 60–80°C. Drawbacks of the microwave modification in electron beam chambers with sequential emitters have been noted and the microwave hardening modification of large-sized polymer composite products by discrete movement (scanning) of a horn emitter over the product surface with a delay at each scanning step has been proposed. The temperature field distribution over the irradiated surface at different scanning schemes has been experimentally investigated. A rational value of the overlap of the radiation pattern areas with the maximum energy flux density at each scanning step has been found to be 25%, which ensures uniform heating of the product surface with a spread of no more than ±5°C and eventually makes it possible to implement a uniform distribution of the mechanical properties of the modified structure.