Abstract
Moisture-induced swelling, or hygroexpansion, has been known to greatly deteriorate the durability of wood fiber-polymer composites (WPC). It is generally very expensive to perform experiments to completely obtain the diffusion kinetics as the process occurs in a very extended period of time. For the first time, we have developed a space-time finite element algorithm that employs time discontinuous Galerkin (TDG) method for time-dependent 3D hygro-mechanical behaviours of WPC. The formulation of matrix equations in spatial and temporal domains are explained in detail. A block Gauss-Seidel iterative method is used in the predictor/multi-corrector multi-pass algorithm, which efficiently yields unconditionally stable and high-order accurate solutions. The model is validated by comparing the predicted time-dependent hygroexpansion with that obtained in a previous experimental study. The quantitative analysis ensures the reliability of model, based on a Fickian diffusion process. With our adaptive time-stepping scheme that bases on the embedded solution from the multi-pass iterations, the model efficiently progresses the kinetics with relatively large time steps. A runtime of a few hours compared to about three months of actual laboratory experimentation confirms the novelty and robustness of our model.
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