Multi-scale analysis of the effects of hysteresis on the hydrothermal behaviour of bio-based materials: Application to hemp concrete

Abstract

Experimental measurements of sorption isotherms show a difference between the water contents in the adsorption phase and the desorption one. This is mainly due to the hysteresis phenomenon. Not considering this phenomenon in hygrothermal behaviour models impacts the reliability of the latter. In this paper, we have studied the effects of hysteresis on the hygrothermal behaviour at the building scale. For this purpose, a new implementation method of a hysteresis model was proposed and validated at the material and wall scales using a bi-climatic chamber which controlled the indoor and outdoor climate conditions. Then, the effect of the hysteresis phenomenon at the building scale was evaluated following a COMSOL/TRNSYS co-simulation approach to consider the gains and losses in the hydric fluxes going through walls. The results showed significant differences in terms of the relative humidity of the living environment. However, no difference was noticed in the temperature variations. On the other hand, the total heat fluxes were also affected by the hysteresis phenomenon due to latent heat parts, that were driven by variations in relative humidity. The maximum gain and loss discrepancies (with and without hysteresis) in total heat fluxes of 1121 kJ/h and 1086 kJ/h, respectively, were obtained during the first week of February (winter period). The results also revealed that these discrepancies are sensitive to the number of persons in the living environment.