Numerical simulation of heat transfer and moisture transport in high performance concrete at early age

A hygro-thermo-chemical model (Di Luzio & Cusatis 2009a) for high-performance concrete (HPC) suitable for the analysis of moisture transport and heat transfer at the early age and beyond is presented. The model formulation exploits the two classical macroscopic mass and energy conservation laws, which are written by using humidity and temperature as primary variables and by taking into account explicitly various chemical reactions, such as cement hydration, silica fume reaction, and silicate polymerization. The present model can simulate early age phenomena, such as self-heating and self-desiccation, with great accuracy as the comparison with experimental test data has demonstrated (Di Luzio & Cusatis 2009b).