Uncertainty Updating in the Description of Coupled Heat and Moisture Transport in Heterogeneous Materials
For researchers and engineers assessing durability of structures, this work provides a method to incorporate uncertainty from multiple sources into coupled heat and moisture transport models, though it is an incremental application of existing Bayesian methods.
This paper applies Bayesian inference to combine different sources of information for more accurate estimation of heat and moisture transport in heterogeneous materials, demonstrating the procedure on a probabilistic description with uncertainties in material characteristics and spatial fluctuations.
To assess the durability of structures, heat and moisture transport need to be analyzed. To provide a reliable estimation of heat and moisture distribution in a certain structure, one needs to include all available information about the loading conditions and material parameters. Moreover, the information should be accompanied by a corresponding evaluation of its credibility. Here, the Bayesian inference is applied to combine different sources of information, so as to provide a more accurate estimation of heat and moisture fields [1]. The procedure is demonstrated on the probabilistic description of heterogeneous material where the uncertainties consist of a particular value of individual material characteristic and spatial fluctuations. As for the heat and moisture transfer, it is modelled in coupled setting [2].