Effective moisture penetration depth model for residential buildings: Sensitivity analysis and guidance on model inputs

Woods, Jason; Winkler, Jon

doi:10.1016/j.enbuild.2018.01.040

Title: Effective moisture penetration depth model for residential buildings: Sensitivity analysis and guidance on model inputs

Journal Article · Wed Jan 31 00:00:00 EST 2018 · Energy and Buildings

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2018.01.040· OSTI ID:1422029

Woods, Jason ^[1];

^[1]

National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)

Moisture buffering of building materials has a significant impact on the building's indoor humidity, and building energy simulations need to model this buffering to accurately predict the humidity. Researchers requiring a simple moisture-buffering approach typically rely on the effective-capacitance model, which has been shown to be a poor predictor of actual indoor humidity. This paper describes an alternative two-layer effective moisture penetration depth (EMPD) model and its inputs. While this model has been used previously, there is a need to understand the sensitivity of this model to uncertain inputs. In this paper, we use the moisture-adsorbent materials exposed to the interior air: drywall, wood, and carpet. We use a global sensitivity analysis to determine which inputs are most influential and how the model's prediction capability degrades due to uncertainty in these inputs. We then compare the model's humidity prediction with measured data from five houses, which shows that this model, and a set of simple inputs, can give reasonable prediction of the indoor humidity.

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Research Organization:: National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Energy Efficiency Office. Building Technologies Office

Grant/Contract Number:: AC36-08GO28308; AC36-08-GO28308

OSTI ID:: 1422029

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1548767

Report Number(s):: NREL/JA-5500-68907

Journal Information:: Energy and Buildings, Vol. 165, Issue C; ISSN 0378-7788

Publisher:: ElsevierCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 16 works

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References (12)

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Cited By (1)

Positive pressure effect on moisture performance in a school building Ferrantelli, Andrea; Vornanen-Winqvist, Camilla; Mattila, Milla Journal of Building Physics, Vol. 43, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1177/1744259119837144	journal	April 2019

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