Engineering Mechanics

Proceedings Vol. 27/28 (2022)

ENGINEERING MECHANICS 2022

Copyright © 2022 Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague

 

Cacciotti R., Wolf B., Macháček M., Frankl J.
pages 49 - 52, full text

Excessive humidity influences the performance of building envelopes and the safety of their occupants. Moisture related problems can indeed impose significant health risks for buildings' users and even lead, under extreme scenarios, to structural failures. This paper investigates an innovative experimental setup for evaluating the influence of changing environmental conditions on the performance of building materials. It stems out from a broader ongoing research aimed at studying the trends of mould growth on wooden building components. The presented results include the design, construction and numerical validation of a small-scale climatic wind tunnel (2m x 1.8m ca.) to be used for the simulation of natural ventilation and daily humidity and temperature fluctuations. Key findings include the final design of a low cost, modular construction which allows gathering reliable data on the response of building materials exposed to changing boundary conditions, intended for improving current mould growth models. Future work is also suggested.

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All papers were reviewed by members of the scientific committee.