ABSTRAKT

The numerical modeling of the coupled heat and mass transfer processes prevalent in drying non-hygroscopic and hygroscopic capillary porous materials is dealt with. A set of volume averaged governing equations is employed for this purpose. An improved hybrid unstructured vertex-centered edge-based finite volume algorithm is used for spatial discretization purposes. Enhancements include reformulation of boundary integral flux-averaging in conjunction with the use of a compact stencil in the computation of diffusive terms. A significant increase in accuracy is demonstrated. For validation purposes, the drying of a non-hygroscopic and hygroscopic material is modeled. Predicted results are shown to compare well with experimental data.