6533b85bfe1ef96bd12ba756

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Experimental study and physical modeling of simultaneous heat and moisture transfer in bio-sourced insulating materials.

subject

description

The conventional heat transfer models are not sufficiently suitable for thermal characterization of bio-sourced thermal insulating materials due to their strongly hydrophilic nature. The proposed work in this PhD thesis aims to answer this problem with experimental and theoretical approaches of coupled heat-moisture transfers. In the experimental approach, a thermal insulating material based on Flax Fiber Felt (FFF) is developed and then characterized at different hygrometric conditions with an asymmetric hot plate device. The humidity diffusion characterization of the samples is done using the GAB, GDW and Park theoretical moisture adsorption isotherm models. In the theoretical approach, a physical model of heat and mass transfer is proposed. It is solved numerically, in transient 3D configuration, by the finite element method under COMSOL Multiphysics and, in transient 1D configuration, by the finite difference method under MATLAB. The Levenberg-Marquardt method coupled with the 1D transient direct model and the measured temperatures made it possible to estimate the apparent thermal conductivity of the studied sample with a relative error of less than 6% compared to the experimental measurements, thus validating the theoretical models.