Patent ID: 7862764

Claim:
A method for drying an article, the article comprising a honeycomb structure having a first end face, an opposing second end face, a longitudinal axis, and a plurality of axially extending cell channels, the method comprising the steps of: inserting an inorganic ceramic-forming plug material into at least a subset of the cell channels at the first or second end face to form a plugged region of the honeycomb structure comprising a plurality of plugs, wherein the plugged region is axially adjacent to an unplugged region of the honeycomb structure; conveying the honeycomb structure through an interior of a drying oven and along a conveyor path in a z-direction while the longitudinal axis of the honeycomb structure is oriented in an x-direction perpendicular to the z-direction; and directing EM radiation in a y-direction toward the honeycomb structure and between the first and second end faces, the y-direction being perpendicular to the x-direction and to the z-direction, and selectively subjecting the plugged region to more EM radiation than the unplugged region so that the EM radiation dissipated by the plugged region is greater than the EM radiation dissipated by the unplugged region.