Impact of wind-driven rain on historic brick wall buildings in a moderately cold and humid climate: Numerical analyses of mould growth risk, indoor climate and energy consumption

This paper gives an onset to whole building hygrothermal modelling in which the interaction between interior and exterior climates via building enclosures is simulated under a moderately cold and humid climate. The focus is particularly on the impact of wind-driven rain (WDR) on the hygrothermal response, mould growth at interior wall surfaces, indoor climate and energy consumption. First the WDR load on the facades of a 4 m × 4 m × 10 m tower is determined. Then the hygrothermal behaviour of the brick walls is analysed on a horizontal slice through the tower. The simulations demonstrate that the impact of WDR loads on the moisture contents in the walls is much larger near the edges of the walls than at the centre. The obtained relative humidity and temperature at the interior wall surfaces are combined with isopleths of generalised spore germination time of fungus mould. The results show that WDR loads can have a significant impact on mould growth especially at the edges of the walls. Finally, for the case analysed, the WDR load causes a significant increase of indoor relative humidity and energy consumption for heating.     

Dust particulate absorption by ivy (Hedera helix L) on historic walls in urban environments

The potential bio-protective role of urban greenery and how it interacts with airborne dust and pollutants has been the subject of much recent research. As particulate pollution has been implicated in both the deterioration of building materials and in damaging human health, understanding how it interacts with urban greenery is of great applied interest. Common or English Ivy (Hedera helix L) grows widely on urban walls in many parts of the world, and thus any bio-protective role it might play is of broad relevance. Using Scanning Electron Microscopy ivy leaves collected on roadways were examined to determine if ivy can absorb dust and pollutants that can instigate decay processes on stone walls and impact human health in urban environments. Results showed that ivy acts as a ‘particle sink’, absorbing particulate matter, particularly in high-traffic areas. It was effective in adhering fine (< 2.5 μm) and ultra-fine (< 1 μm) particles at densities of up to 2.9 × 10¹⁰ per m². Our findings suggest that through absorbing pollutant particles ivy can retard bio-deteriorative processes on historic walls and reduce human exposure to respiratory problems caused by vehicle pollutants.     

Impact of Temperature and Humidity on Chemical and Sensory Emissions from Building Materials

Abstract The chemical and sensory emissions from five building materials (carpet, polyvinyl chloride (PVC) flooring, sealant, floor varnish and wall paint) were tested under different combinations of temperature and relative humidity in the ranges 18–28°C and 30–70% relative humidity (RH). The experiment was performed in a climate chamber where a specially designed test system was built to study emissions from the five materials. The test system could provide different temperatures and humidities of air around the materials, while the air, after being polluted by the emissions from the materials, could be reconditioned to 23°C and 50% RH for sensory assessments. The experiment was designed to separate the direct impact of temperature and humidity on perception from the impact on sensory emission. The study found little influence of temperature on the emissions from the five materials whether expressed in chemical or sensory terms. The effect of humidity was found to be significant only for the waterborne materials – floor varnish and wall paint. Compared with the direct impact of temperature and humidity on the perception of air quality, the impact of temperature and humidity on sensory emissions from the building materials has a secondary influence on perceived air quality.     

夏热冬暖地区建筑垂直绿化对墙体温度的影响

针对夏热冬暖地区建筑物墙面上爬墙虎、紫藤及常春藤等绿化植物对建筑物外墙面、内墙面及墙体附近环境温度的影响进行了实地测试,分析比较了不同覆盖率下绿化墙体与裸露墙体的温度差别,得出了垂直绿化与建筑墙体隔热及建筑空调能耗之间的关系,对建筑墙体的绿化设计具有一定的指导意义。     

Contribution of indoor exposed massive wood to a good indoor climate: in situ measurement campaign

An indoor climate is mainly influenced by factors including heating, ventilation and air-conditioning, building envelope and materials, occupants, furniture, and service life of the building components. These last few years, the usual porous medium provided in wall and flooring constructions have been pointed out as possible passive systems capable of buffering the indoor climate variations in terms of temperature and humidity. The objective for the ongoing project is, therefore, to evaluate the possibility of ensuring an indoor climate within an acceptable range making use of large exposed massive wood surfaces. An experimental study, being performed in four occupied apartments of a multi-storey residential building in Sweden, is described in this paper. A brief analysis of the in situ recordings is also included. The temperature and relative humidity recordings show fairly well-agreement with the ASHRAE recommended values for a good indoor climate excepted during the cold periods revealing low indoor relative humidity. The first results show evidences that a large area of exposed massive wood contributes to buffer the indoor temperature variations. Furthermore, this far it does not shows evidences that a large area of exposed massive wood is able to damp the daily fluctuations in relative humidity.     

垂直绿化改善建筑室内、外热环境效果分析

垂直绿化已成为一种节省空间的节能措施。为研究夏热冬暖地区垂直绿化改善室内热环境和周围热环境的效果,对用爬山虎绿化的建筑的内外壁温及建筑周围室外温度进行实测分析;并用CFD模拟了有、无绿化房间的辐射温度,室内空气温度,PMV、PPD热舒适性指标进行对比分析。测试结果表明,垂直绿化建筑周围热岛效应仅为0.9℃;不同朝向的有绿化墙壁比没绿化的壁面温度有不同程度的降低。效果最好的外壁温平均降低了6.8℃,内壁温平均降低了1.72℃。CFD模拟结果显示,绿化后房间空气温度和辐射温度的平均值分别降低了0.4℃和1℃;PMV-PPD也有改善,而且舒适指标的最大值也减小了。分析可得垂直绿化是一种绿色有效、主动的隔热节能方式。     

Hygrothermal analysis of a stabilised rammed earth test building in the UK

This paper describes the analysis of the hygrothermal behaviours of stabilised rammed earth (SRE) walls used in a building in the UK. The analysis was achieved by computer simulation using WUFI Plus v1.2 whole building hygrothermal analysis software. To validate the model, an unoccupied test room in an unheated SRE building was monitored for 10 months. The hygrothermal properties of the SRE material were measured in the laboratory. It is shown that the SRE walls significantly reduced the amplitude of relative humidity fluctuations in the room air and reduced the frequency of high humidity periods at the wall surface. By adapting the model to represent an occupied and conditioned space, it is demonstrated that SRE walls have the potential to reduce the energy demand for humidification/dehumidification plant.     

几种建筑外墙隔热性能的比较分析

建立了几种建筑外墙结构的数学模型,结合南京夏季室外综合温度,采用FLUENT软件对几种墙体的热工性能进行对比,并从传热学的角度对墙体的内部传热机理进行分析。研究结果表明：添加保温材料或者空气问层均能够提高墙体的隔热性能;墙体采用外保温时,其保温层较高的热阻使热量集中墙体外表面,减小向室内侧的传热量,同时也提高了墙体的耐久性;通过对比几种具有不同隔热措施的建筑墙体,外保温墙体对温度波的衰减度最大,内壁面温度的波动幅度最小,抵御室外温度影响的能力强,热稳定性能好。     

Monitoring of the building envelope of a heritage house: a case study

The paper describes the long-term monitoring of the hygrothermal performance of the building envelope of a heritage house located in Ottawa. The house, once the residence of two of Canada's Prime Ministers, now serves as a museum. To preserve the historical artifacts within the building, the specified temperature and relative humidity (RH) for the indoor air are 21°C and 35% to 50%, respectively. As the house must also be preserved, there was concern about the effect of the high indoor RH (moisture) on the durability of the building structure. The main objective of the monitoring was to assess the effect of the conditioned air on the building envelope. Selected wall sections and a window were continuously monitored from March 1995 to August 1996. The monitoring included indoor and outdoor conditions and the attic environment. Temperature, RH, surface wetting–drying cycles (from precipitation or condensation), and air-pressure differential were monitored. This paper describes the monitoring approach and results. The results indicated that the brick walls are unlikely to experience internal condensation problems as long as they are subjected to a negative air pressure difference. However, because the building is quite leaky, the negative pressure introduced too much cold dry air from the exterior. It caused localized cold spots with condensation and ice formation on interior of walls and ceiling. Negative air pressure differences are not a solution unless the leakage paths are reduced.     

框架填充墙面层裂缝的原因分析与系统防治

经过工程实践，分析了填充墙面层裂缝产生的原因，从结构设计、原材料、施工工艺、构造措施等方面阐述了加气混凝土砌块墙体及其面层的抗裂控制措施，从使用功能入手，对出现的墙体裂缝进行了整治，从而提高建筑品质。     

Wind loads on attached canopies and their effect on the pressure distribution over arch-roof industrial buildings

Arch-roof industrial buildings are very wind sensitive. The current aerodynamic coefficients in wind codes do not contemplate the possibility of existence of canopies attached to the buildings. This paper presents the results of an investigation on the influence exerted by canopies on the static wind actions on arch-roof industrial buildings. Six scale models of these arch-roof buildings were tested, with five types of canopies attached. Three of these canopies were instrumented and the static wind pressures were measured. The tests were done at the boundary layer wind tunnel of the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul. The results show that the aerodynamic coefficients for the roof are not affected by the canopies, in the case of axial incidence. However, the influence on the pressure distribution is noticeable for wind incidence perpendicular to the main axis of the arch roofs and for other incidences as well. This influence is discussed in the paper. The aerodynamic coefficients for the design of the arch-roofs, with and without the attached canopies are given. Aerodynamic coefficients for design of the canopies are also suggested. Furthermore, the paper discusses the relation between the magnitude of the canopy design forces and the canopy width, as well as the relation between the canopy height location and the height of the building wall. The results were compared with design recommendations from previous work of Jancauskas and Holmes (in: US National Conference on Wind Engineering, Proceedings, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, 1985) and Jancauskas and Eddleston (in: International Conference on Wind Engineering, Fotodruck J. Mainz, Aachen, 1987).     

混凝土小型空心砌块墙体干缩性能的试验研究

混凝土小型空心砌块的湿胀干缩性能是引起砌块建筑裂缝的主要原因之一 ,它的危害已引起了人们的关注。设计了一个保湿空间 ,确保环境相对湿度的大致恒定 ,通过对尺寸相同、构造措施不同墙体的试验 ,分析了环境相对湿度 (RH)、时间、面层材料等影响因素对砌块墙体变形的影响 ,对比面层材料的抗变形效果 ,并测得 6 5 %、4 5 %两种湿度条件下墙体的干缩率 ,以供设计时参考使用。     

Analysis of energy demand in residential buildings for different climates by means of dynamic simulation

The aim of the present paper is to propose an analysis of energy consumption of a standard building in different climates. The analysis is developed by simulating the dynamic behaviour of the building subjected to different climatic conditions according to the considered location. Simulations are performed by means of an in-house developed code, validated by comparison with the outcomes from leading software, particularly TRNSYS and EnergyPlus. The use of a self-developed code guarantees a high flexibility and allows the implementation of new capabilities if necessary. The impact on the energy consumption of various parameters, namely internal and external wall insulation, window surface areas, thermal capacity and orientation, is investigated. Results show that the insulation of external walls has a fundamental role in reducing energy consumption, because it allows to exploit the thermal capacity of the walls. This is particularly useful for buildings which necessitate to keep the internal temperature constant.     

温湿度耦合效应下早龄期混凝土的相对湿度场

早龄期混凝土温度和相对湿度的时间空间变化规律是揭示混凝土早期开裂的关键。为此,建立了早龄期混凝土温度湿度耦合作用分析模型,采用无条件稳定向后差分格式,考虑水化作用、自干燥作用、温湿度扩散作用以及温湿度耦合机制,分析早期混凝土相对湿度的时间空间变化规律,定量揭示相对湿度的空间不均匀性,分析了水灰比、环境相对湿度以及表面水分交换系数等对相对湿度及其空间变化规律的影响。与实验结果的对比验证了模型的合理性,结果表明:温湿度扩散作用对相对湿度的影响随距扩散表面距离的增加而减小,水灰比对相对湿度的影响与位置无关,而环境相对湿度和表面水分交换系数主要影响混凝土扩散表面附近的相对湿度场。     

Influence of insulation configuration on heating and cooling loads in a continuously used building

This paper is focused on the energy performance of buildings containing massive exterior building envelope components. The effect of mass and insulation location on heating and cooling loads is analyzed for six characteristic wall configurations. Correlations between structural and dynamic thermal characteristics of walls are discussed. A simple one-room model of a building exposed to periodic temperature changes is analyzed to illustrate the effect of material configuration on the ability of a wall to dampen interior temperature swings. Whole-building dynamic modeling using DOE-2.1E is employed for the energy analysis of a one-story residential building with various exterior wall configurations for six different US climates. The best thermal performance is obtained when massive material layers are located at the inner side and directly exposed to the interior space.     

Assessing the environmental performance of stabilised rammed earth walls using a climatic simulation chamber

The SHU climatic simulation chamber is a novel piece of apparatus that allows testing of full-sized walls with realistic inner and outer wall climatic conditions. Four SRE test walls were successfully constructed and tested over four separate regimes to measure physical properties such as pressure-driven moisture ingress, rate of moisture penetration, and internal/interstitial condensation. The walls far exceeded a series of cyclic pressure-driven rainfall penetration tests based on BS 4315-2. After 5 days of exposure to static pressure-driven moisture ingress there was no evidence of moisture penetration or erosion. The embedded sensor array detected no significant increase in the relative humidity or liquid moisture content inside the test walls, throughout a range of temperature differentials with high levels of humidity, indicating a negligible risk of internal or interstitial condensation.     

Five-year data of measured weather,energy consumption,and time-dependent temperature variations within different exterior wall structures

This paper presents coherent 5-year measured data that have been gathered for analyses of building energy consumption and thermal performance of exterior walls. The data is also very suitable for calculations and simulations of heating and cooling energy need of buildings. The data was collected from six identical test buildings, having exterior walls that are constructed of different building materials. The data include the following: indoor–outdoors temperatures; temperatures at various depths within the northern, southern, eastern, and western exterior wall facades; indoor–outdoors relative humidity, heating energy, wind speed and direction; air tightness, infiltration, and horizontal global solar radiation. A computer system (data logger) was used to monitor, check, calculate, integrate, and save the data acquired from approximately 520 sensors in each test building. Measurements were taken with a time interval of 20 s. The 20 s values were then integrated over a time interval of 30 min and the minimum, maximum, and mean values were subsequently stored to a computer database. Analyses of the results indicated that temperatures within the buildings’ exterior walls are constantly changing and, that occasionally the flow of conduction heat is reversed (i.e. outside–inside) due to solar radiation. For accurate results of temperature distribution and the actual heat losses through building envelopes, none steady-state calculations are essential. Depending on the intensity of solar radiation and the material characteristics of the walls, temperature gradient at the inner surfaces of exterior walls may become milder compared to that of the outer surfaces.     

Modeling study of the aspect ratio influence on urban canopy energy fluxes with a modified wall-canyon energy budget scheme

The influence of the aspect ratio (building height/street canyon width) and the mean building height of cities on local energy fluxes and temperatures is studied by means of an Urban Canopy Model (UCM) coupled with a one-dimensional second-order turbulence closure model. The UCM presented is similar to the Town Energy Balance (TEB) model in most of its features but differs in a few important aspects. In particular, the street canyon walls are treated separately which leads to a different budget of radiation within the street canyon walls. The UCM has been calibrated using observations of incoming global and diffuse solar radiation, incoming long-wave radiation and air temperature at a site in São Paulo, Brazil. Sensitivity studies with various aspect ratios have been performed to assess their impact on urban temperatures and energy fluxes at the top of the canopy layer. In these simulations, it is assumed that the anthropogenic heat flux and latent heat fluxes are negligible. Results show that the simulated net radiation and sensible heat fluxes at the top of the canopy decrease and the stored heat increases as the aspect ratio increases. The simulated air temperature follows the behavior of the sensible heat flux.     

Analysis of the thermal conditions in an unheated museum store in a temperate climate. On the thermal interaction of earth and store

A finite element model of an unheated museum store has been developed for simulating the influence of the building envelope, the wall thickness and the thermal interaction with the surrounding ground on indoor temperature of the store.The question of whether to build the store with high thermal mass or with well-insulated walls with no thermal mass is addressed. The influence from excess humidity entering the store through cracks in the building envelope is also discussed. Finally, ways to stabilize the store temperature by improved design, such as additional insulation of the foundation, will be analysed.The simulations are compared with measurements in a museum store in Ribe, Denmark.     

Material emission rates: Literature review,and the impact of indoor air temperature and relative humidity

An extensive literature review of research on the impact of indoor air conditions; temperature, relative humidity and surface air velocity on materials emission rates is presented. This paper also presents the results of an experimental work to study the impact of room air temperature and relative humidity on materials emission rates. The results indicate that both the temperature and relative humidity have a significant effect on the emissions from paint and varnish. In the case of varnish, the results were consistent with earlier results. However, the paint results show inconsistent emission behaviour. Further, for both materials, the individual compounds did not necessarily follow the same trend established for the TVOC.