Radio frequ ency (RF) heating is conside red as a potential posthar vest technology for disinfesting legu mes. However, the non-uniformity in RF heat ing is still a major problem in
developing effecti ve RF heat treatments for pest control and other application s. A computer simulation model was develope d with a finite element-base d co mmercial software,
COMSOL, to analyse the temperature distri butions. Dry soybeans packed in a rectangul ar
plastic containe r were used to determine the heating uniformity and validate the simulation model using a 27.12 MHz, 6 kW RF system. Both simulated and experiment al results
showed similar heat ing patterns in RF treated soybeans , in which corners and edges were
more heated and the temper ature values were higher in the lower part of the container.
The simu lation results demons trated that the RF heatin g un iformity co uld be im proved
using a similar dielec tric material around the samples, a smaller top plate area (similar to
the sample size), and placing the sampl es in the middle of the two plate electrodes. The
simulation model develo ped in this study could be applied to impro ve the RF heat ing
uniformity and to optimise the treatment parameters