On the Coupled Transient Hygrothermal Analysis in the Porous Cylindrical Panels

In this paper, transient coupled heat and moisture transfer in the cylinders and cylindrical panels of the porous medium are analyzed with three-dimensional finite element methods. Both Dofour and Soret effects are considered in the formulation, and the FEM-based weak forms of the equations are derived using Galerkin method. In the full cylinder cases, both symmetrical and unsymmetrical boundary conditions for heat and moisture are applied to cover three-dimensional and axisymmetric (two dimensional) analysis cases. The obtained systems of time-dependent differential equations are solved by Runge–Kutta method. The main objective of the present study is the analysis of fully coupled diffusion of heat and moisture in cylindrical coordinates using three-dimensional finite element methods. Also, this study addressed the ability of Runge–Kutta method to solve the coupled sets of differential equations. The results were compared with some analytical solutions in the literature, and a very good agreement was observed. The present formulation can be used for transient analysis of any cylindrical geometry with arbitrary geometrical dimensions and under desired boundary conditions.