Multi-Physics Simulation of Wood Drying in COMSOL Multiphysics 3.4.

In this work, the numerical simulation of drying of Pinus pesudostrobus wood is presented by using a phenomenological model. The model is developed by considering the heat and mass balance in the representative elementary volume (REV), which involves the solid, liquid and gas phases. We obtained a system of partial differential equations which was solved by numerical factorization by using COMSOL multiphysics 3.4. Three primary variables were solved: the moisture content, the temperature, and the dry-air mass. The numerical results were compared against experimental data and the semi-empirical model. Our results are satisfactory; we describe the drying kinetics, the moisture distribution within the wood, the dry-air mass evolution and the temperature profiles.