Monitoring and simulating humidity profiles in concrete elements during drying

Abstract

Integrated approaches towards the measurement and simulation of the internal humidity of cement based materials, in which the same team accomplishes all the tasks are scarce in the literature. Furthermore, the measurement of humidity in cement-based materials is a subject that requires experience and significant care to obtain reliable data. In view of this reasoning, the research here reported pertains to an integrated approach that focuses in two main topics: (a) several issues regarding the experimental measurement of internal humidity in cement based materials through sleeved humidity probes, with test series devoted to each issue (namely the type of sensor, the existence of Gore Tex fabric to protect the sensor and the influence of the permanence time of probes within measuring sleeves); (b) an experimental program for humidity measurement in concrete specimens, followed by the simulation through the formulation forwarded in the MC1990/2010. The successful achievement of the measurements and simulations reported herein corroborate the validity of the adopted strategies and assumptions