Numerical Modeling of Heat and Mass Transfer in Porous Materials During Drying and Shrinkage

D. Lelièvre[1], P. Glouannec[1]
[1]Université de Bretagne-Sud, Lorient, France
Published in 2012

Drying is an essential step in many manufacturing processes, for it will have an important impact on the product quality. This is why many numerical models have been realized over decades, in order to predict the hygrothermal behavior of porous media during the drying process. In this paper, we present a model allowing to properly simulate the pressure, heat and mass transfer during the drying of moist plaster on dry concrete. We take advantage of the continuity of vapor pressure between two materials to use it as the main variable in the mass conservation equation, and calculate the moisture content separately through a partial differential equation. This model will also simulate the deformation of plaster using the Navier-Stokes equations.