Engineering Research Equipment Grant: Experimental Equipmentto Measure Transient Heat and Moisture Transport through Fibrous Insulations

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An equipment package will be assembled for field measurements of the temperatures, moisture concentration, and heat flux through various insulation layers used in home construction. The primary objective of the experiments will be to validate a numerical model of the radiation/diffusion (mass and heat) transport processes which occur under actual field conditions, including day/night, winter/summer, high humidity, and contaminated surface operation. Most existing data have been taken under steady-state, guarded hot plate conditions, making extrapolation of models to high humidity and time-varying environments tenuous. Numerical models of the energy lost through building walls indicate that substantial savings can be obtained by properly choosing the geometry and properties of the composite insulation materials, such as the emissivity, density, and affinity of the materials for moisture. Research equipment purchased through this grant is essential to provide a reliable data base against which such models can be validated under actual field conditions.