DTU Byg Course 11122 Heat and mass transfer in buildings

3. AIR & MOISTURE & MATERIALS

EXERCISES
The density of air can also be described with the ideal gas law: a = pa / (Ra * T), where a is
air density [kg/m], pa air pressure [101300 Pa], Ra air gas constant [287 J/kgK] and T is tem-
perature [K].

1. Malt drying in brewery

Before it can be used in the beer brewing process, malt (processed cereal grains) needs to
be dried. To that goal, 1.8104 m/h of air is drawn through the malt (the volume flow is rela-
ted to the final conditions). Initially, the air is at 45 C and 36 %RH. After the malt, the mea-
sured air properties are T: 40 C and v: 35.6 g/m.

a. Express the initial and final moisture state of the air as a vapour pressure, vapour density,
vapour ratio, relative humidity and dewpoint temperature.
b. How much moisture dries out of the malt per hour ?

2. Moisture content in sandstone wall

Consider a sandstone wall of 20 cm between an exterior environment at 12 C and an interior
environment at 20 C, the humidity in the interior environment is 10 g/m. The exterior surfa-
ce of the wall is painted with a vapour tight paint: this implies that the vapour pressure at eve-
ry location in the wall is equal to the interior vapour pressure. The sorption isotherm of sand-
stone is w [kg/m] = 10 / (-1.96 + 2.20 + 0.10), the thermal conductivity is 0.75 W/mK.

a. Sketch the graph for the moisture content distribution in the wall.

3. Interior climate in student room

A student room in Copenhagen has a total volume of 50 m, and a partially glazed front faca-
de. During a cold winter day, the exterior air is at -5 C and 90 %RH. The student heats the
room to 22 C, and his/her cooking and coffee making produces 180 g moisture per hour. To
avoid heat losses, the student has closed all vents, which reduces extracted air to 15 m/h.

a. What is the resulting interior relative humidity ?

b. What U-value is needed for the glazing to avoid interior surface condensation ?
c. What wall thermal resistance is required to avoid mould risk (surface RH < 80 %) ?

4. Conservation of museum artefacts

The conservation of artefacts in a museum requires a constant relative humidity of 60% at an
air temperature of 22 C. The museum, with a total volume of 104 m, has on average 225 vi-
sitors per hour, each of which produces 60 g moisture per hour. The air conditioning sends in
5103 m of conditioned air per hour, originally at exterior conditions -8 C and 90 %RH.

a. How much vapour should be added to this ventilation air by the air conditioning to maintain
the desired interior climate ?
b. Is this possible without preheating of the air in the air conditioning unit ?
c. What would be the museum RH if 1000 m/h of exterior air would infiltrate into the museum
directly (due to an insufficiently air tight building), thus bypassing the air conditioning unit ?

Exercises: 3. Air & moisture & materials

DTU Byg Course 11122 Heat and mass transfer in buildings

5. Crawl space and living room

Consider the combination of the exterior environment,
crawl space and living room as illustrated on the right.
The living room temperature is 20 C, the exterior tem-
perature is 5 C, the crawl-space temperature is 10 C.
Due to vents between exterior and basement and living
room and perforations in the living room floor, thermal
stack creates an air flow loop of 0.15 kg/s (from exteri-
or to crawl space to living room to exterior).
The surface area of the living room and crawl space is
60 m, with respective heights 2.5 m and 1 m. The soil
surface in the crawl space is at 100 %RH and the exte-
rior RH is 90 %.

a. What is the resulting humidity in the crawl-space ?

b. With living room vapour production at 1.0 kg/h, what
is the resulting humidity in this room ?
c. The radon emission from the soil in the crawl space
is 2.5 picoCuries [pCi] per m2. The annual exposure li-
mit for radon in dwellings is 2000 pCi/m3. With the air
flow of 0.15 kg/s, what are the resulting radon concen-
trations in crawl space and living room ? The exterior
air can be assumed to contain virtually no radon.

6. Moisture content in layered floor

A 20 cm concrete floor is poured on top of a vapour tight insulation. When the surface RH at
the top surface of the concrete has dried down to 70 %, the constructor assumes it safe to fi-
nish the floor with a 20 mm wooden deck and a vapour tight varnish. At that time the concre-
te still contains 70 kg/m of moisture, while the wooden deck contains 40 kg/m. The sorption
isotherm of the concrete is w [kg/m] = 100 / (-3.87 + 1.82 + 2.83), that of the wood is
w [kg/m] = 100 / (-1.82 + 1.97 + 0.72).
After some time, equilibrium is reached, and the temperatures at all depths can be assumed
equal to the interior temperature of 20 C. At equilibrium, the vapour pressures at all depths
are also equal.

a. What are the resulting relative humidity and moisture content in the wooden deck ?
b. What consequences could this have ?

Exercises: 3. Air & moisture & materials