Determination of the diffusion coefficient and the hydraulic conductivity of porous media based on embedded humidity sensors

Abstract

Reinforced concrete and several other building materials deteriorate during their service life. Almost all deterioration processes are related to moisture. For understanding those processes, knowing the exact amount of the moisture content and the moisture transport characteristics is crucial. In fact, the moisture transport in porous materials is a two-phase flow; consisting of the vapour and the liquid phase. The two corresponding parameters are the diffusion coefficient and the hydraulic conductivity. By means of an inverse approach, these two coefficients are experimentally determined. The moisture transport of eight different screed types during hydration and evaporation is monitored based on embedded humidity sensors. The measured humidity profiles are converted into a pore saturation by adapting the approach of Hillerborg to the measured pore volume distribution. The summation of all pore saturations yields the total moisture content including the ink-bottle effect during desorption. The pore volume distribution was determined by mercury intrusion porosimetry as well as by gas adsorption. The measurement of the humidity and the pore saturation in the entire sample enables to invert the mass balance in order to extract the diffusion coefficient and the hydraulic conductivity. The determined diffusion coefficients of the eight investigated screeds are between 2.98·10^-8m2s-1 and 3.08·10^-7m2s-1.