A mixed finite element discretization scheme for a concrete carbonation model with concentration-dependent porosity

  • Authors:

  • Florin A. Radu;Adrian Muntean;Iuliu S. Pop;Nicolae Suciu;Olaf Kolditz

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of Mathematics, University of Bergen, P.O. Box 7800, N-5020 Bergen, Norway;Institute for Complex Molecular Systems (ICMS), Eindhoven University of Technology, P.O. Box 513, 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands and Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Eindhoven U ...;Department of Mathematics, University of Bergen, P.O. Box 7800, N-5020 Bergen, Norway and Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Eindhoven University of Technology, P.O. Box 513, 5600 MB ...;Department of Mathematics, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Cauerstr. 11, D-91058 Erlangen, Germany and Tiberiu Popoviciu Institute of Numerical Analysis, Romanian Academy, Fantanele 57, 400320 C ...;Environmental Informatics, UFZ-Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research, Permoserstr. 15, D-04318 Leipzig, Germany and Technische Universität Dresden, Helmholtzstr. 10, D-01056 Dresden, Ge ...

  • Venue:
  • Journal of Computational and Applied Mathematics
  • Year:
  • 2013

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Abstract

We investigate a prototypical reaction-diffusion-flow problem in saturated/unsaturated porous media. The special features of our problem are twofold: the reaction produces water and therefore the flow and transport are coupled in both directions and moreover, the reaction may alter the microstructure. This means we have a variable porosity in our model. For the spatial discretization we propose a mass conservative scheme based on the mixed finite element method (MFEM). The scheme is semi-implicit in time. Error estimates are obtained for some particular cases. We apply our finite element methodology for the case of concrete carbonation-one of the most important physico-chemical processes affecting the durability of concrete.