Funicular state in drying of a porous slab (Q1093478)

Drying of a non-hygroscopic porous slab initially saturated with liquid, up to the time of the first appearance of dried patches (critical time), is studied experimentally using glass beads and convective heating, and analytically using the volume averaged conservation equations for capillary driven liquid flow and empirical constitutive relations. Good agreement has been found between the predicted and measured results and the results show that: (a) The surface mass transfer rate depends on the surface saturation. This surface saturation coefficient, which is also a function of both surface geometry and the free stream velocity, is determined experimentally. (b) The critical time is a ratio of the internal liquid transport conductance (Péclet number) to the external vapor transport conductance (Biot number).