complex (?) drying modeling: diffusion/multiphase

kilroy

Hi everybody. I really hope somebody will help me out on this. It is a problem of vapour diffusion in solid, I am missing some basic hint on which model tool I should use within FLUENT. I have a solid (e.g. a piece of food) into a gas stream. The solid is not necessarily a porous one, i.e. may/may not have geometric voids in it. Nevertheless, the solid is "almost" saturated with liquid water. If you keep the external stream to a high temperature, the solid will dry first at its surface, then "diffusion" will take place within as the specie H2O will be transported towards those local spots where it is evaporated. So I am really interested in seeing the transport of liquid unbound water into the solid. I somehow grasped that the solid should be treated as a "fluid" in FLUENT. Pure specie transport will not make it as I need to describe the surface evaporation. Do I need to allow for a "chemical reaction"? Is it a true "multiphase" problem? I don't care to describe the vapour phase in the external stream. Thank you so much!!!!!!

(helpers will qualify for free ride/pizza/sightseeing in a lovely spot in Italy)

GP aka kilroy