Transport Performances for Coupled Heat and Moisture in Cement-based Materials

Abstract:

By adopting coupled heat and moisture tests in cement-based materials， this paper investigated the effects of temperature and humidity gradients on moisture transport and temperature and humidity distributions. The results reveal that temperature and humidity gradients accelerate moisture transport， and the effect of temperature gradient on moisture transport is more significant than humidity gradient. Moreover， the temperature gradient has a greater effect on temperature distributions than the humidity gradient， and the temperature and humidity gradients have a significant effect on relative humidity distributions. It is， therefore， concluded that during coupled heat and moisture transport in cement-based materials， the moisture transport of cement paste is faster than that of mortar， and the effect of heat transfer should be considered on moisture transport， while the effect of moisture transport could be neglected on heat transfer. The calculated results show that the coupled heat and moisture transport model has a great applicability to cement-based materials

Key words:cement-based materials;coupled heat and moisture;transport performances;durability