Using Whole-House Field Tests to Empirically Derive Moisture Buffering Model Inputs

Woods, Jason; Winkler, Jon; Christensen, David L.; Hancock, E.

doi:10.2172/1220310

Cited by 4 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…We measured the air infiltration rate in different ways for houses A and B. House A used a constantinjection tracer-gas test with CO 2 , a capability that already existed in this house [21,24]. This allowed us to continuously measure the infiltration.…”

Section: Moisture-transfer Measurementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This allowed us to continuously measure the infiltration. House B used several decay tracer-gas tests with SF 6 [21,25], and these data were used to fit an infiltration model [26] as a function of the difference between indoor and outdoor temperatures and the wind speed:…”

Section: Moisture-transfer Measurementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We used a two-step process to verify the accuracy of these measurements [21]: we linked our new measurement method, which uses Eq. (2), to an established method in which the moisture transfer is measured by weighing the sample that adsorbed moisture (e.g., see [27]).…”

Section: Verifying Moisture-transfer Measurementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This enables the new method to be used for more complex testing in the field, including calculating whole-house moisture-buffering model inputs, as described below. Details about these tests are included in [21].…”

Section: Verifying Moisture-transfer Measurementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To extract the EMPD model parameters from field data, we started with the equations of the EMPD model. The full set of equations appears elsewhere [21]. Here, we briefly summarize the model and review the equations needed for the model-input extraction method.…”

Section: Extracting Moisture-buffering Model Inputsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Field measurement of moisture-buffering model inputs for residential buildings

Woods

Winkler

2016

Energy and Buildings

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Moisture adsorption and desorption in building materials impact indoor humidity. This effect should be included in building-energy simulations, particularly when humidity is being investigated or controlled. Several models can calculate this moisture-buffering effect, but accurate ones require model inputs that are not always known to the user of the building-energy simulation. This research developed an empirical method to extract whole-house model inputs for the effective moisture penetration depth (EMPD) model. The experimental approach was to subject the materials in the house to a square-wave relative-humidity profile, measure all of the moisture-transfer terms (e.g., infiltration, air-conditioner condensate), and calculate the only unmeasured term-the moisture sorption into the materials. We validated this method with laboratory measurements, which we used to measure the EMPD model inputs of two houses. After deriving these inputs, we measured the humidity of the same houses during tests with realistic latent and sensible loads and demonstrated the accuracy of this approach. These results show that the EMPD model, when given reasonable inputs, is an accurate moisture-buffering model.

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Section: Moisture-transfer Measurementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Moisture-transfer Measurementsmentioning

confidence: 99%