Abstract
Previous studies show that climate change has an impact on the damage risks in solid masonry facades. To conserve these valuable buildings, it is important to determine the projected change in damages for the original and internally insulated cases. Since historical masonry covers a wide range of properties, it is unknown how sensitive the climate change impact is to variations in different parameters, such as wall thickness, brick type, etc. A factorial study is performed to determine the climate change impact on freeze-thaw risk, mould growth and wood decay in solid masonry in Brussels, Belgium. It is found that the critical orientation equals the critical wind-driven rain orientation and does not change over time. Further, the freeze-thaw risk is generally decreasing, whereas the change in mould growth and wood decay depends on the climate scenario. Knowing the brick type and rain exposure coefficient is most important when assessing the climate change impact. For freeze-thaw risk and wood decay, it is found that simulating one wall thickness for the uninsulated and one insulated case is sufficient to represent the climate change impact. Finally, the effects of climate change generally do not compensate for the increase in damage after the application of internal insulation.
Highlights
There is clear evidence of anthropogenic climate change, as was stated in the 5th Assessment Report (AR5) by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) [1]
This paper presents a factorial study of the impact of climate change on solid masonry walls in Brussels, Belgium, with and without interior insulation
A sensitivity analysis is performed to study the impact of climate change on three damage risks in solid masonry in Brussels, Belgium, i.e., freeze-thaw damage of the masonry, mould growth at the interior wall surface and wood decay of embedded beam heads
Summary
There is clear evidence of anthropogenic climate change, as was stated in the 5th Assessment Report (AR5) by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) [1]. Besides the impact on temperature, other changes have been observed since pre-industrial times, e.g., changes in snow and ice amounts, spatial patterns of precipitation, sea level, etc. Extreme events such as heat waves, droughts and extreme precipitation have become more intense and frequent. Changes in the climate system and the increasing severity of certain weather events pose challenges to the preservation of heritage buildings [2,3,4,5]. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) made a list of the principle climate change risks and their impact on cultural heritage [2]. Items on that list are freeze-thaw damage, thermal stress, biological activity, moisture infiltration, corrosion of metals, crystallisation and dissolution of salts, among others
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