Transnational cooperative research and development project support from IraSME

Fiber Optic Sensor Assisted Safe Industrial Microwave Heating System-FOSASMICROHEAT

The project titled “FOSASMICROHEAT” which our consortium submitted during the 27th IraSME call for proposals has been approved. This call was organised by IraSME, a network for national and regional funding schemes to promote transnational cooperative research and development projects between SMEs and research organisations. TÜBITAK (Turkey) and SPW (Wallonia/Belgium) were involved in evaluating the proposal.

The project consortium is composed of MET Advanced Technology Systems, Optical Fiber Metrology and Sensors Laboratory at our Department, and B-Sens Creating Sensing Solutions.

We congratulate Dr. Kıvılcım YÜKSEL ALDOĞAN and her team for their success. Optical Fiber Metrology and Sensors Laboratory at IZTECH will be the academic partner bridging the gap between the two SME’s involved in the project, in terms of theoretical simulations, sensor calibration and system implementation.

Summary of the project:
High safety, durability and low energy consumption are the main concerns of industrial applications today.The food industry is one of the most strategic areas. Industrial microwave ovens are designed to heat food efficiently, quickly and evenly. Not only food, but drying, tempering or heating different objects need this type of process for different reasons. Microwaves can easily form standing waves inside the cavity causing cold spots on the product. These cold spots cannot be heated to the desired level and may result in insufficient product output quality. In addition, electric arcs due to a dense electric field are very common in microwave ovens. These arcs can easily start a fire and cause serious damage. This project therefore aims to develop a new platform comprising an industrial microwave oven and a monitoring unit. The monitoring unit based on fiber optic sensor technology will have both quasi-distributed temperature measurement and fire detection functions.