BCIT Citations Collection | BCIT Institutional Repository

BCIT Citations Collection

Development and benchmarking of a new hygrothermal model
Proceedings of 11th International Conference on Durability of Building Materials and Components: 11 May 2008, Istanbul, Turkey. This paper presents a new hygrothermal model (HAMFit) for simulating the transport of heat, air and moisture across building envelopes. The model is based on partial differential equations solved simultaneously for air velocity, temperature, and moisture distributions for given interior and exterior conditions using finite-element-based commercial software called COMSOL Multiphysics and MatLab. The model is benchmarked using internationally-published numerical model test cases., Conference paper, Published. A version of this document is published in: 11th International Conference on Durability of Building Materials and Components, Istanbul, Turkey, May 11-14, 2008, pp. 1-8.
EE13-2 development and benchmarking of a new whole building hygrothermal model
Proceedings of Building Enclosure Science & Technology (BEST2) Conference, Portland, USA, April 12-14, 2010. During design process, building engineers evaluate the performance of various design alternatives in terms of their durability, comfort and indoor air quality, as well as energy efficiency using building envelope, indoor and energy analysis tools, respectively. But, usually the analysis tools are in the form of stand-alone package, where there is no direct link among them but rather simplifying assumptions are made on the other two when designing for one. In this paper, the development and benchmarking of a newly developed whole building hygrothermal model are presented. The model considers the building as a system and accounts for the dynamic heat, air and moisture (HAM) interaction between building envelope components and indoor environmental conditions including HVAC systems, moisture and heat sources. The methodology adopted in this work is to develop and validate two primary models: building envelope and indoor models independently and couple them to form the whole building hygrothermal model. After successful integration of the models, the whole building hygrothermal model is benchmarked against internationally published numerical and experimental test results. The holistic model can be used to assess building enclosures durability, indoor conditions (temperature and relative humidity), occupant comfort, and energy efficiency of a building in an integrated manner., Conference paper, Published.
Hygrothermal modeling of aerated concrete wall and comparison with field experiment
Proceedings of 3rd International Building Physics Conference: 27 August 2006, Montreal, QC. A two-dimensional heat, air and moisture transport model called hygIRC is adapted to simulate a well-documented field exposure of an aerated concrete wall section. Difficulties are encountered due to a few missing information on boundary conditions of the exposure and hygrothermal properties of aerated con-crete. The paper presents how these inadequacies were overcome to simulate the hygrothermal behavior of the wall section. Appropriate assumptions were made due to justifiable reasons. Then the model provides temporal and spatial distributions of temperature and relative humidity for an extended period that are in ex-cellent agreement with the documented field data. The paper presents the justifications for the assumptions and the comparison of experimental and simulation results., Conference paper, Published. A version of this document is published in: 3rd International Building Physics Conference, Montreal, QC., August 27, 2006, pp. 321-328.
Simulation of wind-driven rain effects on the performance of a stucco-clad wall
Thermal Performance of Exterior Envelopes of Whole Buildings X International Conference, Clearwater Beach, Florida, USA, December 02, 2007. This climate sensitivity study studied the effects of wind-driven rain on a stucco-clad wall using the advanced hygrothermal model, hygIRC. Simulations were made for a number of climatic conditions based on the moisture index (MI) and for amounts of water deposited inside a wall. The moisture index was based on the severity of a given climate in respect to wall assemblies and the degree of wetting and drying to which a wall could potentially be subjected. The failure criteria was the concurrent occurrence of temperature and relative humidity above thresholds of 10oC and 95% respectively, for ninety consecutive days at any location of wood-based material in the wall., Conference paper, Published. A version of this document is published in: Thermal Performance of Exterior Envelopes of Whole Buildings X International Conference, Clearwater Beach, FL., Dec. 2-7, 2007, pp. 1-15.