The Potential of Meshless Methods to Address Physical and Mechanical Phenomena Involved during Drying at the Pore Level

Abstract

This article reviews a number of so-called meshless methods, particularly those suitable for investigations at the pore level, as potential tools to face new challenges in the field of drying. It is very difficult to be exhaustive in this domain, so only some of the most promising methods have been selected: lattice Boltzmann (LB), smooth particle hydrodynamics (SPH), dissipative particle dynamics (DPD), material point method (MPM), and percolation networks (PN). In the introduction these methods are classified according to simple key features: off/on lattice and the nature of the physical formulation compared to classical finite element (FE) or control volume (CV) methods. The core of the article presents a brief description of each method, including its principle, simple formulation, and some result examples. This is followed by a summary review intended to guide the reader in choosing the method most suitable for his specific application.