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ISSN Online: 2377-424X

International Heat Transfer Conference 12
August, 18-23, 2002, Grenoble, France

A Computational Algorithm to Solve Strongly-Coupled Equations of Heat and Mass Transfer

Get access (open in a dialog) DOI: 10.1615/IHTC12.710
6 pages

Abstract

Heat and mass conservation equations are frequently coupled. Classical solution methods are based on numerical decoupling: cross terms at a given iteration step are calculated by using the values of the potentials at the previous iteration. This procedure increases the magnitude of source terms with respect to the main diagonal terms and requires very small time steps to ensure numerical stability. This article presents a generic and robust algorithm to simultaneously solve governing equations with strong coupling among the dependent variables. It is shown that, in addition to considerably reducing the running time, it assures unconditionally stable solutions. To verify its performance, a case study of combined heat and mass transfer through a porous media is presented, for a drying process.