Open AccessIdentifying the critical orientation of wood-frame walls in assessing moisture risks using hygrothermal simulation
Author(s) -
Chetan Aggarwal,
Maurice Defo,
Hua Ge,
Michael A. Lacasse
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of physics. conference series
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.21
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1742-6596
pISSN - 1742-6588
DOI - 10.1088/1742-6596/2069/1/012011
Subject(s) - moisture , environmental science , orientation (vector space) , water content , brick , ashrae 90.1 , meteorology , materials science , geography , mathematics , engineering , geometry , geotechnical engineering , composite material
Hygrothermal simulations can be used as a reliable tool in analysing moisture performance. For an efficient analysis, it is important to appropriately select the wall orientation in the simulations. ASHRAE 160 recommends to using orientation with highest amount of annual wind-driven rain (WDR) and the orientation with the least annual solar radiation. The objective of this work was to identify the orientation which leads to the worst moisture performance of different wall assemblies under historical climate in different Canadian cities. Four cardinal orientations (North, East, South, and West) and orientation receiving the highest amount of annual WDR (Default) were tested in this study. The simulations were carried out assuming three scenarios of moisture loads for four different wood-frame (2×6 wood stud) wall systems that differ by their claddings: brick, fibreboard, stucco, and vinyl. With an assumption of no WDR, north facing wall always leads to the worst moisture performance. In the presence of WDR, with and without water source, default orientation leads to the worst moisture performance with few exceptions. As default orientation was based on total sum of WDR, it sometimes may not lead to worst performance and hence hourly distribution of WDR should be taken into consideration.