Numerical analysis of the thermal behaviors of cellular concrete

In this study, both two- and three-dimensional (2D and 3D) finite-volume-based models were developed to analyze the heat transfer mechanisms through the porous structures of cellular concretes under steady-state heat transfer conditions and to investigate the differences between the 2D and 3D modeling results. The 2D and 3D reconstructed pore networks were generated from the microstructural information measured by 3D images captured by X-ray computerized tomography (X-CT). The computed effective thermal conductivities based on the 2D and 3D calculations performed on the reconstructed porous structures were found to be nearly identical to those evaluated from the 2D cross-sectional images and the 3D X-CT images, respectively. In addition, the 3D computed effective thermal conductivity was found to agree better with the measured values, in comparison with the 2D reconstruction and real cross-sectional images. Finally, the thermal conductivities computed for different reconstructed porous 3D structures of cellular concretes were compared with those obtained from 2D computations performed on 2D reconstructed structures. This comparison revealed the differences between 2D and 3D image-based modeling. A correlation was thus derived between the results of the 3D and 2D models.