Thermal behaviour of a porous reference material under different heating atmospheres.

This study presents an analysis of the temperature evolution in a porous sample. Various situations have been examined: the porous solid is initially dry or water saturated, and the heating fluid is dry air or steam. This analysis showed experimentally the optimal phases of using steam to heat a material. Moreover, as humidity in the solid considerably modifies the heating kinetics, the study has also been carried out on a non-porous solid. The treatment of the temperature curves under an adimensionnal form shows a singular behaviour of those temperatures following the heating fluid nature and its temperature. Equations giving temperature versus time have been proposed. They are based an the definition of a time lag and a time constant, both being defined as a function of the single fluid temperature parameter. Finally, in the particular case of the non-porous solid heated by dry air, with additional approximations, it has been possible to check that the experimental time constant is very close to a fundamental time constant.