Small-scale wind tunnel for the investigation of the influence of environmental conditions on the performance of building materials

0574871 - ÚTAM 2025 DE eng J - Journal Article
Cacciotti, Riccardo - Wolf, Benjamin - Macháček, Michael
Small-scale wind tunnel for the investigation of the influence of environmental conditions on the performance of building materials.
Experimental Techniques. Roč. 48, June (2024), s. 485-499. ISSN 0732-8818. E-ISSN 1747-1567
R&D Projects: GA ČR(CZ) GA20-12941S
Institutional support: RVO:68378297
Keywords : building engineering * building materials * moisture * performance evaluation * wind tunnel
OECD category: Civil engineering
Impact factor: 1.6, year: 2022
Method of publishing: Limited access
https://doi.org/10.1007/s40799-023-00672-y

Climate significantly affects the performance of building materials and its changing patterns are posed to increasingly exacerbate the projected impacts. Prevention strategies are indeed necessary to ensure avoiding excessive degradation and serious damage to the built environment. In this context, innovative and accessible methodologies and tools are required to investigate and characterize the interaction between material properties and climatic factors. This paper presents an innovative device for the simulation of natural ventilation, relative humidity and temperature fluctuations and for evaluating the performance of building materials subjected to different environmental scenarios. The presented results include the design, construction and validation of a small-scale wind tunnel (2 m × 1.8 m ca. vertical orientation). Key findings outline the adequacy of the tool in reproducing a stable, quality airflow with the following characteristics: achievable operational airflow speed ranges between 0.2 and 0.7 m/s, safe operational temperature is included between 10℃ and 35℃ and allowable operational relative humidity varies between 30 and 99%. Advantages and limitations for laboratory applications are outlined in the paper and future work is also suggested.
Permanent Link: https://hdl.handle.net/11104/0345305