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Dynamic Analysis of Moisture Transport Through Walls and Associated Cooling Loads in the Hot/Humid Climate of Florianopolis, Brazil
Abstract
We describe the use of a dynamic model of combined
heat and mass transfer to analyze the effects on
cooling loads of transient moisture storage and
transport through walls with porous building
materials, under varying boundary conditions.
The materials studied were brick, lime mortar and
autoclaved cellular concrete. The physical properties
of these materials, such as mass transport
coefficients, thermal conductivity and specific heat,
were taken to be functions of moisture content.
The simulation results were compared to those
obtained by pure conduction heat transfer without
moisture effects. Also analyzed were the influence on
cooling loads of high moisture content due to rain
soaking of materials. and the influence of solar
radiation on sunny and cloudy days. The weather
used was a hot/humid summer period in
Florian6polis (South Brazil).
It is shown that neglecting moisture migration or
assuming that the physical properties of wall
materials do not depend on moisture content can
result in large errors in sensible and latent heat
transfer.
Citation
Mendes, N.; Winkelmann, F. C.; Lamberts, R.; Philippi, P. C.; Da Cunha, Neto, J. A. B. (1996). Dynamic Analysis of Moisture Transport Through Walls and Associated Cooling Loads in the Hot/Humid Climate of Florianopolis, Brazil. Energy Systems Laboratory (http://esl.tamu.edu); Texas A&M University (http://www.tamu.edu). Available electronically from https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /6693.