E€ect of volumetric water content on thermal properties of dairy cattle feces mixed with sawdust

This paper describes the thermal properties (e€ective thermal conductivity and thermal di€usivity) of an organic waste used to model the composting process in relation to volumetric water content at 20°C. The organic waste was a mixture of fresh dairy cattle feces and sawdust with a ratio of one-to-one on a dry weight basis. The thermal probe method was used to determine the e€ective thermal conductivity and di€usivity. The e€ective thermal conductivities were found to increase with volumetric water content, and ranged from 0.0500 to 0.202W mÿ1 Kÿ1 at volumetric water contents of 0% and 44.2%, respectively. The thermal di€usivity was not a€ected by the volumetric water content, and was found to have a mean value of 1.08 * 10-7 m2 s-1.