Abstract
In order to quantify humidity regulation effects of building finishing materials, the calculation procedure based on the inhomogeneous diffusion simultaneous equations of heat and moisture transfer within the hygroscopic region within the materials was proposed. The presented vector-matrix equation was derived from thermal network method. This calculation method allows for the heat and moisture balance in the control volume of a segmented building mass and the boundary conditions such as convective heat transfer, moisture transfer, radiation exchange among inside surfaces, solar radiation and nocturnal radiation. To confirm accuracy of the presented calculation procedure, a series of experiments were performed. A good agreement between measured and calculated values on temperatures and humidities in a small box was observed. Using one-dimensional heat and moisture transfer program, a series of computer simulations on the hour-by-hour basis were performed to identify the effects of interior finishing materials on space heating and cooling loads. The results show large discrepancies in latent heat loads between in the cases of considering and neglecting moisture absorption and desorption.
