Complete and satisfactory solutions of Luikov equations of heat and moisture transport in a spherical capillary-porous body

Abstract

Available results based on the exact solutions of the Luikov system of coupled heat and moisture diffusion problems addressed to the boundary conditions of the third kind for the bodies of simple geometry, have been reconsidered and revised because the transcendental equations have countable number of complex conjugate roots under certain conditions, which were ignored in the original computations. A methodology, quite different from Lobo et al., is presented for evaluating a set of countable number of pairs of complex conjugate roots. The influence of complex eigenvalues on the temperature and moisture distributions in a spherical capillary porous body is demonstrated and benchmark results are obtained for reference purpose. © 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd.; Available results based on the exact solutions of the Luikov system of coupled heat and moisture diffusion problems addressed to the boundary conditions of the third kind for the bodies of simple geometry, have been reconsidered and revised because the transcendental equations have countable number of complex conjugate roots under certain conditions, which were ignored in the original computations. A methodology, quite different from Lobo et al., is presented for evaluating a set of countable number of pairs of complex conjugate roots. The influence of complex eigenvalues on the temperature and moisture distributions in a spherical capillary porous body is demonstrated and benchmark results are obtained for reference purpose.