TRANSPORTE SIMULTÂNEO DE CALOR, UMIDADE E SAL EM CONCRETO

Resumo

Concrete structures can suffer various types of damage, which can considerably shorten
their life. One of the responsible for this process is the transport of salts into the concrete pores. In
addition to accelerating the corrosion process in the steel frame, these salts can concentrate at some
points (nucleation), causing cracks and fractures in the structure, consequently decreasing its
resistance. Thus, the objective of this work is the analysis of how this transport takes place inside the
porous structures, simultaneously considering the transport of heat, moisture and salt in the porous
medium. The discretization of the governing equations was performed using the finite volume method,
and the algebraic equations system was solved through the MultiTriDiagonal Matrix Algorithm
(MTDMA) algorithm, which allows the simultaneous solution of the governing equations. For the
model verification, several simulations considering different boundary conditions were performed and
compared with a model proposed by other authors, showing good similarity between the results. From
the results it was possible to observe the influence of moisture transport on the salt displacement inside
the concrete, in the drying and imbibition processes.