Effect of intermittent heating on drying-induced strain-stress of molded clay

Parametric analyses of the strain-stress in the drying process are performed to study the influence of the intermittent drying on the behaviors of drying-induced strain-stress and deformation as well as the drying characteristic. The transient three-dimensional problem of strain-stress and heat and moisture transfer in a slab is solved simultaneously by the finite element method. The dimensionless parameters are introduced to generalize the problem in the conservation equations of heat and moisture transfer. The intermittent drying is modeled by applying periodically smaller and larger Blot numbers to the boundary conditions. The maximum tensile and compressive stresses fluctuate, and fall remarkably during the smaller Blot number period when a slab is heated intermittently. The peak stress of the fluctuation exceeds beyond the case in the continuous heating where the overall drying rate is almost equivalent to that in the intermittent heating, but the reduction of the stresses takes place rapidly in the low heating period.