Strain-Stress Formation and Deformation of Molded Materials by Drying-Induced Shrinkage

Abstract

Drying-induced strain-stress and deformation was modeled for molded materials such as ceramics and foods. The transient three-dimensional problem of strain-stress and heat and moisture transfer was solved simultaneously by the finite element method. The behaviors of internal strain-stress formation and deformation are compared among three modes of hot air heating, intermittent heating and internal heating for a ceramic slab. The concepts of the mass transfer potential and a linear viscoelasticity were introduced to consider the different sorption isotherm for layered foods consisting of two ingredients and creep phenomenon. The tensile and compressive stresses fluctuate and fall remarkably during lower heating period when the slab is heated intermittently. In the internal heating mode, drying proceeds fastest as well as stress formation is maintained at the lowest level in the three modes. This effectiveness of the internal heating is investigated experimentally by employing the microwave heating as well. The combination of different foods influences significantly not only the drying characteristic but also the internal strain-stress generation. The drying behavior could be analyzed with a high accuracy even if only heat and moisture transfer were solved without strain-stress analysis. This fact results in that heat and mass transfer and strain-stress are not always necessary to be analyzed simultaneously for saving the CPU time.