The effect of air velocity on moisture buffering

Abstract

Hygoscopic finishing materials improve the indoor hygrothermal comfort and air quality, as they reduce the extremes of variation in relative humidity. This property, known as moisture buffering, is related to the capacity of hygroscopic materials to adsorb and desorb moisture from the air. Air velocity plays an important role on the sorption performances of materials: increasing the air speed leads to increased moisture buffering capacity. In order to obtain comparable results, several moisture buffering protocols require the air speed to be constant and around 0.1 m/s during tests. However, those tests are usually performed in climatic chambers, where air speed cannot be controlled and the flow may not be homogenous. The aim of this study is to demonstrate, that positioning test specimens in different locations within the same chamber gives different moisture buffering value results, due to the non-homogenous air speed distribution. For this reason, air velocity has been monitored, measuring the differential pressure and air speed in different locations in a climatic chamber. Moisture buffering tests have been performed in six locations of the chamber and a correlation between the two analyses has been evaluated. The significance of this paper is to understand the relationship between air speed and moisture buffering performances, in order to determine an air velocity correction factor, which enables the moisture buffering value to be evaluated when existing protocols cannot be adhered.