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Investigation of Gravity-Driven Drainage and Forced Convective Drying in a Macroporous Medium Using Neutron Radiography

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Abstract

The co-occurrence of gravity-driven drainage and forced convective drying in a macroporous medium is investigated in this study. The drainage and drying processes of fully saturated porous asphalt (PA) specimens placed in a custom-made mini wind tunnel are documented with neutron radiography (NR). Six PA specimens of dimensions \(180\times 10\times 30\,\hbox {mm}^{3}\) with a maximum aggregate size of 8 or 11 mm are used in the experiments. In the first few minutes of each experiment, there is significant moisture loss in all the specimens due to gravity-driven drainage. Most of the residual water retention is observed at the bottom region of the specimens due to the strong impact of gravity-driven drainage in the upper regions. The specimens are subjected to many hours of airflow at their top surface; however, forced convection from turbulent airflow near the upper part of the specimens is found to have a minor influence on moisture loss when there are no water clusters in the upper regions of the specimens. This points to the strong resistance to evaporation in PA as a result of the large vapor diffusion lengths. By combining neutron radiography and microcomputer tomography (X-ray \(\upmu \)-CT) images, saturated and unsaturated flows in the pores are distinguished. Fluid flow path during air entry and water redistribution is further analyzed by reconstructing the real three-dimensional pore geometry of the specimens from X-ray \(\upmu \)-CT scans.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by a Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) Grant (200021_143651).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory for Multiscale Studies in Building Physics, Empa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, Uberlandstrasse 129, 8600, Dübendorf, Switzerland

    Sreeyuth Lal, Dominique Derome & Jan Carmeliet

  2. Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering, ETH Zurich, 8093, Zurich, Switzerland

    Sreeyuth Lal

  3. Electrochemistry laboratory, Paul Scherrer Institute, 5232, Villigen PSI, Switzerland

    Sreeyuth Lal

  4. Road Engineering/Sealing Components Laboratory, Empa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, Uberlandstrasse 129, 8600, Dübendorf, Switzerland

    Lily D. Poulikakos & Manfred N. Partl

  5. Laboratory for Electronics/Metrology/Reliability, Empa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, Uberlandstrasse 129, 8600, Dübendorf, Switzerland

    Iwan Jerjen

  6. Laboratory for Neutron Scattering and Imaging, Paul Scherrer Institute, 5232, Villigen PSI, Switzerland

    Peter Vontobel

  7. Chair of Building Physics, ETH Zurich, 8093, Zurich, Switzerland

    Jan Carmeliet

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  1. Sreeyuth Lal
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  2. Lily D. Poulikakos
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  3. Iwan Jerjen
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  6. Dominique Derome
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  7. Jan Carmeliet
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Correspondence to Sreeyuth Lal.

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Lal, S., Poulikakos, L.D., Jerjen, I. et al. Investigation of Gravity-Driven Drainage and Forced Convective Drying in a Macroporous Medium Using Neutron Radiography. Transp Porous Med 118, 119–142 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11242-017-0850-z

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