Transient analysis of heat and mass transfer during heat treatment of wood including pressure equation

Abstract

In the present paper, three-dimensional equations for coupled heat and mass conservation equations for wood are solved to study the transient heat and mass transfer during high thermal treatment of wood. The model is based on Luikov’s approach, including pressure. The model equations are solved numerically by the commercial package FEMLfor the temperature and moisture content histories under different treatment conditions. The simulation of the proposed conjugate problem allows the assessment of the effect of the heat and mass transfer within wood. A parametric study was also carried out to determine the effects of several parameters such as initial moisture content and the sample thickness on the temperature, pressure and moisture content distributions within the samples during heat treatment.