Qualitative and quantitative assessment of interior moisture buffering by enclosures

Abstract

The significance of interior humidity in attaining sustainable, durable, healthy and comfortable buildings is increasingly recognised. Given their significant interaction, any interior humidity appraisal requires a qualitative and/or quantitative assessment of interior moisture buffering. While the effective moisture penetration depth and effective capacitance models allow quantified assessment, their reliance on the ‘moisture penetration depth’ necessitates comprehensive material properties and hampers their application to multidimensional interior objects. On the other hand, while various recently suggested protocols for the simple and fast measurement of the moisture buffer potential of interior elements allow qualitative assessment, none of these are currently dependable for a wide range of moisture production regimes. In response to these flaws, this paper introduces the production-adaptive characterisation of the moisture buffer potential of interior elements and corroborates their superposition toward a room-enclosure moisture buffer potential. It is verified that this enables qualitative comparison of enclosures in relation to interior moisture buffering. It is moreover demonstrated that it forms an alternative basis for quantitative evaluation of interior moisture buffering by the effective moisture penetration depth and effective capacitance models. The presented methodology uses simple and fast measurements only and can also be applied to multimaterial and/or multidimensional interior elements.