Detailed numerical modelling of moist air flow through a complex airtightness defect

Mastering building airtightness is essential to meet the requirements of current and future building codes, not only for saving energy but also for ensuring moisture safety. Perfect airtightness is difficult to achieve: failures are often observed, due to bad design or poor workmanship. Some published investigations proved that leaking air mostly flows through porous material and thin air channels, due to material imperfections and construction tolerances.

A New Educational Concept for Whole Building Heat, Air & Moisture Simulation

The objective of the paper is to present a new educational concept for improving the accessibility towhole building Heat, Air & Moisture (HAM) simulation models developed in the simulation environmentHAMLab. We provided a library of buildings, including the default performances of the buildingsthemselves, on a website. Students can select the most appropriate building, adapt the inputparameters, simulate and evaluate the results. In case a higher resolution is required, two stepsexplain how to implement respectively advanced controllers and HAM details.