The precision of methods used for the determination of hygric properties of porous building materials was investigated. The study was performed in the framework of the EU-initiated HAMSTAD-project. Six laboratories measured the selected hygric properties of three porous building materials. While the most measured properties show acceptable agreement, yet, it was found that some of the existing standards or commonly accepted measurement methods need improvement. Most striking were large variations in the results of the vapour transmission tests performed in accordance to the existing European Standard.

The Boltzmann transformation method is used to determine the liquid water diffusivity from moisture content profiles as measured in a capillary water absorption experiment. An inter-laboratory comparison for analyzing the reliability of the determination method showed that the inaccuracy in the liquid water diffusivity is caused by scatter in the transformed data and by uncertainty in the boundary conditions at the intake surface and ahead of the steep moisture front. A methodology is proposed based on (1) the evaluation of the validity of the diffusion approach, (2) a simplified handling of the boundary conditions, (3) smoothing of the scattered data and (4) the evaluation of the quality of the determined liquid water diffusivity. For HAM (Heat-Air-Moisture transport) calculations values of the liquid water diffusivity for moisture contents higher than the capillary moisture content are disregarded. The liquid water diffusivity can be described by an exponential function limited at a lower moisture content bound.To describe the moisture diffusivity including liquid water and water vapour transports, a new parametric description of the moisture diffusivity is presented, which shows sufficient flexibility both in the hygroscopic and overhygroscopic ranges. When permeability is calculated from diffusivity, the permeability should monotonically increase with decreasing capillary pressure. In the hygroscopic region it should coincide with the measured water vapour permeabilities.

Several advanced non-destructive techniques are available to measure the evolution of content profiles with time, allowing the analysis of unsaturated flow and the determination of the moisture diffusivity of porous building materials. The reliability of six different techniques is investigated: the NMR-technique, the MRItechnique, the γ-ray attenuation technique, the capacitance method, the X-ray projection method and the TDR-technique. All of them were applied to measure the moisture content evolution during free uptake experiments on two building materials. Considering the limitations of some of the techniques, a good overall agreement is obtained. The work presented is an outcome of the EU-initiated HAMSTAD-project.

An experimental and theoretical analysis of the water vapor adsorption in several types of porous building materials is presented. For the measurement of adsorption isotherms, a DVS-Advantage water sorption device is used. The experimental data is analyzed using theoretical formulas based on the BET, BSB, BDDT, and FHH isotherms, assuming a monoas well as multi-layer water vapor adsorption. The BSB equation is found to provide a good approximation for the relative humidities below 0.6-0.7, whereas the FHH equation shows a sufficient accuracy for the relative humidities above 0.4-0.5. Based on a combination of BSB and FHH isotherms, a semi-empirical formula is proposed that allows one to obtain a very accurate approximation of experimental data for all analyzed materials and all values of the relative humidity.Keywords Water vapor adsorption · Porous building materials · Theoretical adsorption isotherms · Experimental measurements Abbreviations c BET constant (-) C s Surface concentration (mol m −3 ) C sat s saturation surface concentration (mol m −3 ) D Fractal dimension (-) H a Molar heat of adsorption (J mol −1 K −1 ) H c Molar heat of condensation/vaporization (

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