A three-dimensional staggered finite element approach for random parametric modeling of thermo-hygral coupled phenomena in porous media

SUMMARY The aim of this paper is to present a three-dimensional (3D) finite element modeling of heat and mass transfer phenomena in partially saturated open porous media with random fields of material properties. Randomness leads to transfer processes within the porous medium that naturally need a full 3D modeling for any quantitative assessment of these processes. Nevertheless, the counterpart of 3D modeling is a significant increase in computations cost. Therefore, a staggered solution strategy is adopted which permits to solve the equations sequentially. This appropriate partitioning reduces the size of the discretized problem to be solved at each time step. It is based on a specific iterative algorithm to account for the interaction between all the transfer processes. Accordingly, a suitable linearization of mass convective boundary conditions, consistent with the staggered algorithm, is also derived. After some validation tests, the 3D numerical model is used for studying the drying process of a cementitious material with regard to its intrinsic permeability randomness. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.