Abstract
The heat transfer in a common salt bed is closely connected with the caking tendency of salt. It was found that when the salt bed is regarded homogeneous in macro, the general theory of heat conduction is applicable to it (the influence of heat convection and radiation was negligible). Accordingly, it is possible to theoretically estimate the change of temperature in the salt bed by determining the thermal diffusivity. Therefore, the relation between the moisture and the thermal diffusivity of many kinds of samples was studied.
A pattern was devised to illustrate the contacts among crystals, and it consisted of two spheres of an equal size contacting at the distance of l and drawing the surface liquid around the contacting point by the surface tension. The results of discussion obtained well agreed with the experimental results. The distance l is considered to correspond to the coarseness of the crystal surface in micro, and it may be regarded as one of the characteristics of salt.
