Reducing spatial dimensionality in a model of moisture diffusion in a solid material (Q1434605)

The authors introduce a concept of relative error. The proposed error estimation procedure can be successfully used to adjust the width of the material (e.g. long sawn board) as well as the degree of coating of the edges to ensure the relative error to be less than a required value resulting from reducing the model from two to one dimension. The two-dimensional model guarantees perceptibly better prediction of the drying process of a sawn board than the corresponding one-dimensional model if the ratio of the width to thickness of the material is rather small or the degree of the edges is not very high.