Modeling of ice formation in porous solids with regard to the description of frost damage

Abstract

The freezing and thawing of liquid in porous media in connection with the question concerning the frost durability of solid materials is an important subject for discussion in civil engineering. Each construction or body which is in contact with liquid and frozen water is criticized by its resistance to the environment. The durability concerning frost attacks of a building material is affected by its porosity and the pore size distribution. The ice formation is a phenomenon of coupled heat and mass transport in freezing porous media, and is primarily caused by the expansion of ice in connection with hydraulic pressure. The volume increases due to the freezing front inside the porous solid. Taking into account the aforementioned effects in porous materials, a simplified macroscopic model within the framework of the Theory of Porous Media (TPM) for the numerical simulation of initial and boundary value problems of freezing and thawing processes of super saturated porous solids will be presented. The phase change between the ice and the liquid phase is modeled by different real densities of the phases.