Abstract
For the past two decades, researchers have investigated different methods to improve the energy efficiency of mining operations. In recent years, microwave-assisted comminution has attracted attention among researchers due to its potential to improve the efficiency of comminution circuits. The complexity of considering crushed materials and their interaction with microwaves has made microwave-assisted comminution a challenging subject. In this study, a finite element-based fully coupled thermo-electromagnetic model is developed and validated with the laboratory experiments conducted in this study. The geometry of the crushed samples is considered as diced-shaped particles with size distribution similar to the experiments and with random particle arrangements inside the microwave cavity. A comparison between the numerical and experimental results for the absorbed energy confirms the reliability of the developed model. It is also shown that the heat absorption during microwave heating is concentrated in larger particles. Furthermore, considering the same particle size distribution, the effect of particle arrangement has shown to be negligible. The developed model can be utilized for optimizing energy absorption during microwave-assisted comminution circuits.