Selecting moisture reference years using a Moisture Index approach

Abstract

Recent history has documented the premature failures of building envelopes in various regions-in North America most notably on the West Coast and the East Coast. The MEWS Consortium, a project undertaken by IRC and its partners, has addressed this issue in detail. The strategy for answering these questions was based on predicting the moisture management performance of wall systems as a function of climate, wall construction, and material properties through mathematical modeling. A key task was to determine what years to use as input for the simulations. Moisture Reference Years were selected using a Moisture Index approach developed for MEWS. This paper will develop the approach and compare it with other methods of selecting Moisture Reference Years for hygrothermal simulations.

Hygrothermal properties of cross laminated timber and moisture response of wood at high relative humidity

“…For the interior boundary condition, the indoor temperature was set to 26 °C, and the RH was set to 65%, and for the external boundary conditions were based on the climate of Vancouver, B.C., which is considered an extreme condition since it is relatively mild and wet. The weather conditions were chosen using the Moisture Index approach as suggested by Comick et al(2003). The weather in the first year of the simulation was based on an average of year 1969 according to the MI approach (Comick et al 2003).…”

“…The weather conditions were chosen using the Moisture Index approach as suggested by Comick et al(2003). The weather in the first year of the simulation was based on an average of year 1969 according to the MI approach (Comick et al 2003). As Comick et al (2003) have modeled various years to identify the wet (worst year) and the dry (best year) years based on 5 different wall assemblies in Vancouver, BC.…”

Determination of the positive weather year for application in hygrothermal simulations

“…In case of investigation of moisture induced damage, it is necessary to use weather data that includes sudden or rapid changes. In the literature, such weather year is known as a critical weather year [7][8][9][10][11][12]. The critical weather year is used to simulate most severe conditions in the studied locality with respect to a particular kind of damage.…”

An integrated methodology for soil moisture analysis using multispectral data in Mongolia

“…Cornicka et.al developed the approach and compared results with other methods of selecting moisture reference years for hydrothermal simulations. They used climate stations' data for their model (Cornicka, Djebbar, and Dalgliesh 2003;Attorre et al 2007) determined the moisture index using precipitation and potential evapotranspiration. The moisture index, related to the potential amount of available precipitation, was the most important factor explaining the distribution of Dracaena Cinnabari.…”