Transport in Porous Media, Vol.46, No.1, 77-89, 2002
Non-linear model for wood saturation
The paper presents a non-linear model of saturation with fluid of anisotropic capillary porous bodies and the results of experimental investigations of wood saturation with methacrylate. The obtained experimental curves illustrating the distribution of methacrylate in wood samples allow the estimation of material coefficients and verification of the theoretical model. The theoretical model is developed based on the balance equations of mass, momentum, and energy, and the thermodynamics of irreversible processes. The non-linear differential equation, describing the distribution of methacrylate content in wood and its evolution during the saturation is solved numerically. The theoretical curves obtained on the basis of both linear and non-linear models are compared with the experimental data and better agreement between them for the non-linear model is stated.