Modeling Heat and Moisture Transport During Hydration of Cement-Based Materials in Semi-Adiabatic Conditions

E. Hernandez-Bautista[1,2], D. Bentz[1], S. Sandoval-Torres[2], P. Cano-Barrita[2]
[1]National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD, USA
[2]Instituto Politécnico Nacional/CIIDIR Unidad Oaxaca, Oaxaca, México
Veröffentlicht in 2014

The process of accelerated curing of pre-cast concrete has a significant importance in the thermal behavior of concrete. A multiphysics model that describes hydration and heat and mass transport in cement based materials was developed. The hydration reactions are described by a maturity function that uses the equivalent time concept, thereby describing the change in the degree of hydration based on the time-temperature history in the form of Domain Ordinary Differential Equations. These equations are coupled to a heat balance, using the COMSOL® Heat Transfer Module. Using the PDE general form, we solved the moisture content conservation equation. The numerical results were compared with the experimental temperatures obtained directly by semi-adiabatic temperature measurements. The numerical results show a good agreement.