A User-Friendly Tool to Characterize the Moisture Transfer in Porous Building Materials: FLoW1D

Virginia Cabrera; Rubén López-Vizcaíno; Ángel Yustres; Miguel Ángel Ruiz; Enrique Torrero; Vicente Navarro

doi:10.3390/app10155090

Applied Sciences (Jul 2020)

A User-Friendly Tool to Characterize the Moisture Transfer in Porous Building Materials: FLoW1D

Virginia Cabrera,
Rubén López-Vizcaíno,
Ángel Yustres,
Miguel Ángel Ruiz,
Enrique Torrero,
Vicente Navarro

Affiliations

Virginia Cabrera: Department of Civil Engineering and Construction, Institute of Technology, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Campus Universitario s/n, 16071 Cuenca, Spain
Rubén López-Vizcaíno: Department of Civil Engineering and Construction, Institute of Technology, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Campus Universitario s/n, 16071 Cuenca, Spain
Ángel Yustres: Department of Civil Engineering and Construction, Institute of Technology, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Campus Universitario s/n, 16071 Cuenca, Spain
Miguel Ángel Ruiz: Department of Civil Engineering and Construction, Institute of Technology, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Campus Universitario s/n, 16071 Cuenca, Spain
Enrique Torrero: Department of Civil Engineering and Construction, Institute of Technology, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Campus Universitario s/n, 16071 Cuenca, Spain
Vicente Navarro: Department of Civil Engineering and Construction, Institute of Technology, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Campus Universitario s/n, 16071 Cuenca, Spain

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/app10155090
Journal volume & issue: Vol. 10, no. 15
p. 5090

Abstract

Read online

This paper presents a user-friendly tool—FLoW1D (One-Dimensional Water Flow)—for the estimation of parameters that characterize the unsaturated moisture transfer in porous building materials. FLoW1D has been developed in Visual Basic for Applications and implemented as a function of the well-known Microsoft Excel© spreadsheet application. The aim of our work is to provide a simple and useful tool to improve the analysis and interpretation of conventional tests for the characterization of the hygric behavior of porous building materials. FLoW1D embraces the conceptual model described in EN 15026 for moisture transfer in building elements, and its implementation has been verified and validated correctly. In order to show the scope of the code, an example of an application has been presented. The hygric characterization of the limestone that is mostly employed in the Cathedral of Santa Maria and San Julian in Cuenca (Spain) was conducted based on an analysis of the conventional water absorption by capillarity tests (EN 15801).

Published in Applied Sciences

ISSN: 2076-3417 (Online)
Publisher: MDPI AG
Country of publisher: Switzerland
LCC subjects: Technology: Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General); Science: Biology (General); Science: Physics; Science: Chemistry
Website: http://www.mdpi.com/journal/applsci

About the journal

Abstract

Keywords