1. Introduction
With the growing energy crisis, the lightweight has become an important consensus on the development of the mechanical manufacturing industry, thermoplastic polymers because of its light quality, simple processing and forming, strong mechanical properties, good corrosion resistance and low cost advantages(Ries et al., 2021; Song et al., 2019; Xu and Zhang, 2016), has been widely used in food, medical care, aerospace, petrochemical, packaging and other fields. The use of thermoplastic polymers to replace metal products has become one of the most important lightweight methods (Chen et al., 2022; Park et al., 2020; van Grootel et al., 2020). Since 1950, it has been estimated that 8.3 billion tons of polymers have been produced in the world and have continued to grow at a high speed, the material stratum almost exists in all aspects of human life (Jehanno et al., 2022; Walker and Rothman, 2020). However, because polymers are difficult to degrade, unengaged waste polymers will inevitably cause damage to the environment and ecology, and polymers that are decomposed into micro plastics will even enter the food chain, seriously affecting human life and health (Bank and Hansson, 2019; Zhu et al., 2018; Zhu, 2021).
Rising energy prices and public environmental awareness have prompted governments and enterprises to realize that resource and environmental sustainability is a priority in product manufacturing and recycling processes, which requires the search for more efficient and environmentally friendly new means of polymer processing and recycling (Chen et al., 2012; Gagliardi et al., 2019; Sweeney et al., 2020). Within this framework, the objective of this paper is to find new means of more efficient and convenient polymer linking for low energy consumption and high efficiency recovery while saving energy and protecting the environment.
All along, welding technology has been pursuing to reduce welding heat input and improve machining efficiency on the premise of satisfying the connection quality, which has promoted the development of modern welding technologies such as friction stir welding (Rathinasuriyan et al., 2021), ultrasonic welding (Bhudolia et al., 2020) and laser welding (Li et al., 2022). Although these technologies have significantly improved processing efficiency and processing quality compared with the traditional hot plate welding, they are still typical welding methods based on heat conduction, which make the molecules diffuse to form entangled molecular chains by heating the interface, so as to realize the connection of polymers (Cunha and Robbins, 2020; Huang et al., 2018; Li et al., 2018). Due to the low thermal conductivity of polymers, heat transfer in the welding process is a slow process, which determines that the shortcomings of high heat input and low welding efficiency are difficult to be fundamentally solved (Lambiase and Genna, 2020; Mehra et al., 2018; Sheikh-Ahmad et al., 2022). The laser transmission welding technology makes the heat directly act on the welding interface through the combination design of materials with different light transmittance, which solves the problem of low welding efficiency caused by low thermal conductivity of polymer to a certain extent(Acherjee, 2020; Chen et al., 2018; Schmailzl et al., 2020; Wang et al., 2021). However, the limitation of the process still leads to the problem of low welding efficiency of high light transmittance materials, which restricts the wide application of laser welding (Acherjee et al., 2011). Therefore, it is still an important challenge for the current manufacturing industry to seek for polymer welding methods with higher efficiency, higher quality and wider material applicability.
Microwave has unique characteristics different from other electromagnetic waves, such as short wavelength, high frequency and strong penetrability(El Khaled et al., 2018; Hattermann et al., 2017; Robinson et al., 2022). Besides being widely used in food heating and telecommunications industries, in recent years, people have paid more and more attention to its remarkable advantages in the fields of material processing such as drying, curing, casting and sintering, such as improving mechanical properties, reducing defects, economy and environmental protection, etc. (Potente et al., 2002; Yarlagadda and Chai, 1998; Yussuf et al., 2005). When a material is polarized in an alternating field, some energy will be lost in the form of heat, and the ratio of energy lost in each inversion process is dielectric loss. According to the characteristics of different dielectric loss materials with different microwave adsorption degrees, the dielectric polymer can be controllably heated by reasonably adjusting the matching relationship between microwave energy and material dielectric parameters(Lackinger, n.d.; Lutkenhaus, 2018; Yu et al., 2023; Zeng et al., 2020). Compared with convection heating, microwave heating consumes 10-100 times less energy and requires 10-200 times less time. As a new processing method with high quality, high efficiency and environment friendly, microwave welding is expected to replace laser transmission welding technology in polymer welding(Majdzadeh-Ardakani and Banaszak Holl, 2017). However, the non-uniform distribution of microwave power in the heating medium caused by factors such as the thermophysical characteristics of polymer and the non-uniform distribution of electromagnetic field intensity in the heating cavity will lead to local overheating problems such as thermal runaway (Bhattacharya and Basak, 2017; Sahota et al., 2020). In addition, the microwave frequency band that can be applied in the industrial field is only 915 MHz and 2450 MHz, which has a relatively long wavelength compared with the laser frequency segment, which leads to the difficulty of accurately focusing the microwave on the material to be processed in microwave welding to improve the machining accuracy and efficiency (Green et al., 2018; Hill and Jennings, 1993; Shao and Wang, 2019).
The plasmon effect of nanoparticles can make the light wave break through its diffraction limit and focus in the range smaller than its wavelength. In recent years, more and more researchers hope to apply the focusing property of plasmon effect to microwave and millimeter wave frequency, but unfortunately, the plasma frequency of metal is in infrared and optical bands, while in microwave and millimeter wave bands, the characteristics of metal are closer to ideal conductor than electric plasma, so there is no plasmon mode in microwave band (Li et al., 2020). In order to generate plasmons at microwave or terahertz frequency, researchers proposed in 2004 that plasma metamaterials with subwavelength structure should be made on metal surface to excite plasmons at microwave or terahertz frequency band. Artificial surface plasmons excited by plasma metamaterials inherit the field confinement and subwavelength resolution of natural plasmons (Pendry et al., 2004). Because the artificial surface materials excited by plasmons are very sensitive to the dielectric environment near the structure(Jun et al., 2021; Ni et al., 2020; Qian et al., 2021; Sun et al., 2019), it is expected to be applied in microwave welding, and provide a new solution in improving the efficiency, precision, freedom of machining and reducing the energy consumption of the microwave welding(Li et al., 2015; Olofinjana et al., 2001).
Based on this, this paper creatively applies the plasmon local field enhancement effect to the microwave welding field of dielectric polymer, and proposed a method of plasmon local field enhancement assisted microwave welding (PLFEMW), that is, by designing a specific metal macro-gap, the localized surface plasmon effect of microwaves is excited, so that the electromagnetic field intensity of microwaves is highly enhanced in localized areas, and the purpose of "focusing" microwaves is achieved. The "focused" microwave energy is applied to the welding area of the dielectric material, and the dielectric material itself loses the electric field energy in the alternating electric field and generates heat to melt the weld area and achieve the purpose of welding. In this paper, the local field enhancement characteristics of microwave energy and the heating characteristics of materials are studied by the finite element numerical simulation method. The feasibility of PLFEMW technology and the reliability of the model are verified by the welding test of PA66. Finally, the factors affecting the local field enhancement characteristics of microwave and the electromagnetic thermal characteristics of dielectric materials are analyzed by the finite element numerical simulation. The feasibility of PLFEMW under various working conditions was explored. The results have important guiding significance for the precise control of welding energy, position and size in the process of microwave welding.
Figure 1.
PLFEMW welding method. (a) Temperature distribution of traditional microwave heating processes. (b) Local “focusing” enhancement of microwave field excited by bimetallic spheres. (c) The schematic diagram of polymer precision welding based on the local "focusing" enhancement effect of microwave field excited by bimetallic ball includes the distribution curves of electric field, power density and temperature in weld zone and the schematic diagram of Electromagnetic-heating inside polymer.
Figure 1.
PLFEMW welding method. (a) Temperature distribution of traditional microwave heating processes. (b) Local “focusing” enhancement of microwave field excited by bimetallic spheres. (c) The schematic diagram of polymer precision welding based on the local "focusing" enhancement effect of microwave field excited by bimetallic ball includes the distribution curves of electric field, power density and temperature in weld zone and the schematic diagram of Electromagnetic-heating inside polymer.
Figure 2.
Electric field distribution under different modes of excitation with the same microwave energy. Among them, (a) traditional microwave heating mode, (b) local enhancement mode of bimetallic excited microwave field, and (c) local enhancement heating mode of bimetallic excited microwave field. (d) The electric field intensity distribution curve at the dotted line in Figure (a), (b) and (c) under different modes.
Figure 2.
Electric field distribution under different modes of excitation with the same microwave energy. Among them, (a) traditional microwave heating mode, (b) local enhancement mode of bimetallic excited microwave field, and (c) local enhancement heating mode of bimetallic excited microwave field. (d) The electric field intensity distribution curve at the dotted line in Figure (a), (b) and (c) under different modes.
Figure 3.
(a–c) respectively show the distribution of electric field, total power density and temperature inside the polymer. (d) is the distribution curve of electric field, power consumption density and temperature at the position of dotted line in Figure (a–c).
Figure 3.
(a–c) respectively show the distribution of electric field, total power density and temperature inside the polymer. (d) is the distribution curve of electric field, power consumption density and temperature at the position of dotted line in Figure (a–c).
Figure 4.
(a) Schematic diagram of PLFEMW welding process of PA66. (b) Electric field, total power consumption density and temperature distribution before and after adding glass film. (c) and (d) are the distribution of electric field and temperature field in the depth direction of solder joint inside the polymer.
Figure 4.
(a) Schematic diagram of PLFEMW welding process of PA66. (b) Electric field, total power consumption density and temperature distribution before and after adding glass film. (c) and (d) are the distribution of electric field and temperature field in the depth direction of solder joint inside the polymer.
Figure 5.
(a) shows the temperature distribution of polymer cross sections under different curvature radii. (b,c) are temperature distribution curves of solder joint depth and width under different curvature radius conditions.
Figure 5.
(a) shows the temperature distribution of polymer cross sections under different curvature radii. (b,c) are temperature distribution curves of solder joint depth and width under different curvature radius conditions.
Figure 6.
(a) Temperature rise curves of PA66 welding process under different curvature radii. (b) Temperature distribution of PA66 welding process under different curvature radius conditions.
Figure 6.
(a) Temperature rise curves of PA66 welding process under different curvature radii. (b) Temperature distribution of PA66 welding process under different curvature radius conditions.
Figure 7.
Mechanical properties of different PLFEMW samples. (a) Force-displacement curves of base material and different specimens. (b) Morphology of base material and different specimens after tensile fracture. (c) Fracture morphology of 27.5mm sample. (d) Local magnification of the fracture.
Figure 7.
Mechanical properties of different PLFEMW samples. (a) Force-displacement curves of base material and different specimens. (b) Morphology of base material and different specimens after tensile fracture. (c) Fracture morphology of 27.5mm sample. (d) Local magnification of the fracture.
Figure 8.
Influence characteristics of ball material, gap size and size on electric field strength. (a) the curve of the maximum electric field intensity with the conductivity of the ball under different dielectric constants. (b) When the radius of metal sphere is 12.5 mm, the electric field intensity changes with the distance between two metal spheres. (c) When the distance between the two metal spheres is 2 mm, the variation curve of the electric field intensity with the curvature radius of the metal sphere. (d) When the curvature radius of the metal ball is 5mm, 15 mm, 25 mm and 35mm, the electric field intensity distribution curve on the dotted line is shown in the figure.
Figure 8.
Influence characteristics of ball material, gap size and size on electric field strength. (a) the curve of the maximum electric field intensity with the conductivity of the ball under different dielectric constants. (b) When the radius of metal sphere is 12.5 mm, the electric field intensity changes with the distance between two metal spheres. (c) When the distance between the two metal spheres is 2 mm, the variation curve of the electric field intensity with the curvature radius of the metal sphere. (d) When the curvature radius of the metal ball is 5mm, 15 mm, 25 mm and 35mm, the electric field intensity distribution curve on the dotted line is shown in the figure.
Figure 9.
Effect of electromagnetic wave wavelength and incidence Angle on electric field intensity. (a) Variation curve of electric field intensity with wavelength. (b) Variation curve of maximum electric field intensity with incidence elevation under different incident azimuth conditions.
Figure 9.
Effect of electromagnetic wave wavelength and incidence Angle on electric field intensity. (a) Variation curve of electric field intensity with wavelength. (b) Variation curve of maximum electric field intensity with incidence elevation under different incident azimuth conditions.
Figure 10.
Effect of permittivity and conductivity of polymer on electric field strength. (a) Curve of maximum electric field intensity with polymer conductivity under different dielectric constants. (b,c) Change curves of electric field intensity and temperature at the center of solder joint with conductivity under different dielectric constants. (d) Curve of absorption cross section of polymer with conductivity under different dielectric constant conditions. (e) electric field intensity and power consumption density distribution for ε = 0.5 S /m, ε =2 and ε =8 conditions.
Figure 10.
Effect of permittivity and conductivity of polymer on electric field strength. (a) Curve of maximum electric field intensity with polymer conductivity under different dielectric constants. (b,c) Change curves of electric field intensity and temperature at the center of solder joint with conductivity under different dielectric constants. (d) Curve of absorption cross section of polymer with conductivity under different dielectric constant conditions. (e) electric field intensity and power consumption density distribution for ε = 0.5 S /m, ε =2 and ε =8 conditions.
Figure 11.
(a) Schematic diagram of PLFEMW industrial welding robot and (b) schematic diagram of machining principle. (c–e) respectively show the temperature distribution of multi-layer welding model, composite welding model and multi-ball and roller welding model.
Figure 11.
(a) Schematic diagram of PLFEMW industrial welding robot and (b) schematic diagram of machining principle. (c–e) respectively show the temperature distribution of multi-layer welding model, composite welding model and multi-ball and roller welding model.
Table 1.
Parameters of PA66, metal ball and glass.
Table 1.
Parameters of PA66, metal ball and glass.
|
Thermal Conductivity W/(m·K) |
Density
Kg·m-3
|
Constant Pressure Heat Capacity J/(kg·K) |
Relative Permeability 1 |
Conductivity S·m-1
|
Relative Permittivity 1 |
PA66 |
0.3 |
1150 |
1700 |
1 |
0.4 |
4.5-0.056j |
Metal ball |
44.5 |
7850 |
475 |
1 |
4.032×106
|
piecewise |
Glass |
1.4 |
2210 |
730 |
1 |
41×10-14
|
2.55 |