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The necessity of understanding and simulating hydrological phenomena as well as their interactions and the effect of anthropogenic and climate conditions on the ecosystem have encouraged researchers for years to investigate the moisture transfer in soil. Considering the moisture transfer as an isothermal phenomenon might cause a wrong estimation due to the non-isothermal nature of the moisture movement in porous media. Hygrothermal (coupled heat and moisture transfer) models are quite diverse and are the engine of the various hygrothermal software tools used to analyze the heat and moisture in building envelopes, drying technologies, and many other applications. This paper is a literature survey conducted to provide an overview on the classical hygrothermal models to address the historical perspectives on these models. First, it investigated, from a historical point of view, the challenges behind the development of hygrothermal models as unsaturated flow theories, beginning with Buckingham theory. The non-isothermal nature of moisture was the starting point for researchers to deal with new challenges during mathematical modeling and experimental analysis. In general, the theory of coupled heat and moisture transfer first developed by J.R. Philip and De Vries and the authors in the mid-1950s inspired the novel hygrothermal models, including Sophocleous and Milly’s model, Rode’s model, Künzel’s model, and Grunewal’s model. In a parallel of hygrothermal model developments, the models of Whitaker and Luikov can also be classified as hygrothermal models; they were mostly applied in modeling the phenomenon of drying. The study highlights the application of hygrothermal models in building physics and gathered a summary of international efforts such as Annex 24, Annex 41, and the HAMSTAD project and advancements performed from the classical dew point or steady-state Glaser method. Moreover, this study emphasizes the advantages of the standard of EN 15026 and limitations of the Glaser method. To sum up, hygrothermal models are still under development based on various assumptions of moisture driving potentials and transfer coefficients.

Sand-bentonite (SB) mixtures have been used successfully for construction of hydraulic barriers when clayey soils are not available. Compacted layers of SB mixtures have been proposed and used in a variety of geotechnical structures as engineered barriers for the enhancement of impervious landfill liners. In the practice we will try to get an economical mixture that satisfies the hydraulic and mechanical requirements. The effects of the bentonite additions are reflected in lower water permeability, and acceptable shear strength. In order to get an adequate dune sand bentonite mixtures, an investigation relative to the hydraulic and mechanical behavior is carried out in this study for different mixtures. According to the results obtained, the adequate percentage of bentonite should be between 12% and 15 %, which result in a hydraulic conductivity less than 10E–6 cm/s, and good shear strength.