Transient Heat and Moisture Flow Around Heat Source Buried in an Unsaturated Half Space

Abstract

This article presents solutions for the transient heat and moisture transport due to both disk heat source and cylindrical heat source buried in an unsaturated half space. The solutions are presented in Hankel-Laplace transform domain and in dimensionless style. Coupled effect of thermally driven moisture transport is especially investigated because of its importance to alter the flow field in low-permeability medium. Parametric study has been performed to assess the effects of five independent dimensionless parameters on flow field. The stability and accuracy of the present solutions are demonstrated from the comparison between the results obtained from these solutions and those by using a well-established finite element code CODE_BRIGHT. Despite the simplified assumptions required in order to obtain analytical solutions in Hankel-Laplace transform domain, the results incorporate the main mechanisms involved in the coupled thermo-hydraulic (T-H) problem, and they may be eventually used for validation purposes.