Thermal analysis of high frequency electromagnetic heating of lossy porous media

- Analytical solutions are presented for electromagnetic heating of lossy media.
- The solutions can be used as forward models in design of experimental studies.
- The solutions allow estimation of electromagnetic absorption coefficient.
- The solutions allow estimation of electromagnetic power loss.

Industrial applications of the electromagnetic wave as a source of energy have been increasing in recent years. One of the growing areas of application of electromagnetic heating (EMH), especially using high frequency waves, is the heating of geological media for extraction of hydrocarbons. In this work, electromagnetic field propagation in a lossy, electrically isotropic, and homogenous medium was studied to determine the effectiveness of EMH for heavy oil recovery. The electromagnetic heat source is modeled using Beer-Lambert's law coupled with heat conduction. New analytical solutions are developed to find temperature distribution in linear and radial geometries subject to various boundary conditions. The effect of electromagnetic heat generation on thermal penetration depth is examined. One of the challenges in electromagnetic heating of geomaterials has been reflection of the incident wave due to impedance mismatch and thus loss of the applied power. The analytical solutions developed allow determination of absorbed power by the geological media and thus can be used as a tool to predict efficiency of electromagnetic heating. In addition, the aforementioned solutions can be used as forward model for design of experiments and to estimate the electromagnetic absorption coefficient of geomaterials.