Hygrothermal Material Properties for Soils in Building Science
- ORNL
Saving energy in buildings is top of mind with today s building professionals. Although designing energy-efficient walls and roofs is mostly a no-brainer, ensuring that below-grade foundations do not generate moisture problems has become even more complex, particularly because of how soil is involved. Hygrothermal performance of soils coupled to buildings is complicated because of the dearth of information on soil properties. A computational approach for heat transfer through the ground has been well-defined, and simplified methods have been developed. These approaches, however, generally ignore the transfer of soil moisture, which is not negligible. The intention of an ongoing study at Oak Ridge (TN) National Laboratory, therefore, is to gather, comprehend and adapt soil properties from soil science as well. The obtained information must be applicable to related tasks in building science and validated with hygrothermal calculation tools, where additional plugins to the existing software code WUFI (an acronym for Warme unde Felichte Instructionar, which translates to unsteady heat and moisture) are required. (See the sidebar, opposite page, for specifics on WUFI.)Simulation results from WUFI are being compared with existing thermal-only measurements and are being accomplished with ongoing hygrothermal measurements. The final outcome of the study will be the evaluation of several soil types in several climate zones for a number of basement assembly types. The study will define the type of soil, together with the type of building construction considered most and least reliable with respect to energy consumption and moisture safety. Furthermore, the study will determine the influences that different soils have on total energy loss through the ground.
- Research Organization:
- Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)
- DOE Contract Number:
- DE-AC05-00OR22725
- OSTI ID:
- 1110965
- Journal Information:
- Journal of National Institute of Building Science, Journal Name: Journal of National Institute of Building Science
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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