Condensation Risk Due to Variations in Airtightness and Thermal Insulation of an Office Building in Warm and Wet Climate

Condensation in a building encourages microbial growth, which can have an adverse effect on the health of occupants. Furthermore, it induces the deterioration of the building. To prevent problems caused by condensation, from the design step of a building, predictions of the spatial, temporal and cau...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inEnergies (Basel) Vol. 9; no. 11; p. 875
Main Authors Cho, Wanghee, Iwamoto, Shizuo, Kato, Shinsuke
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Basel MDPI AG 2016
Subjects
Air conditioning
Airtightness
Buildings
Condensates
Condensation
condensation risk (CR)
Construction
Construction materials
Insulation
microbial growth
Mold
office building
Office buildings
Risk
Thermal insulation
warm and wet climate
Japan
INW, Japan, Honshu, Tokyo Prefect., Tokyo
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Summary:Condensation in a building encourages microbial growth, which can have an adverse effect on the health of occupants. Furthermore, it induces the deterioration of the building. To prevent problems caused by condensation, from the design step of a building, predictions of the spatial, temporal and causation for condensation occurrences are necessary. By using TRNSYS simulation coupled with TRNFLOW, condensation assessment of an entire office building in Tokyo, Japan, was conducted throughout the year, including when the air-conditioning system was not operated, by considering the absorption-desorption properties of the building materials and papers in the office and the airflow within the entire building. It was found that most of the condensation occurred during winter and was observed mainly in the non-air-conditioned core parts, especially the topmost floor. Additional analyses, which identified the effect of variations in the thermal insulation of the external walls, roof and windows and the airtightness of the windows on condensation, showed that the lower airtightness of windows resulted in decreased condensation risks, and condensation within the building was suppressed completely when the thermal insulation material thickness of the external walls was greater than 75 mm, that of the roof was greater than 105 mm and the windows had triple float glass.
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ISSN:1996-1073
1996-1073
DOI:10.3390/en9110875