Ruut Hannele Peuhkuri

Moisture and Bio-Deterioration Risk of Building Materials and Structures

There are several biological processes causing aging and damage to buildings. This is partly due to natural aging of materials and excessive moisture. The demands on durability, energy balance, and health of houses are continually rising. For mold development, the minimum (critical) ambient humidity requirement is shown to be between RH 80% and 95% depending on other factors like ambient temperature, exposure time, and the type and surface conditions of building materials. For decay development, the critical humidity is above RH 95%. Mold typically affects the quality of the adjacent air space with volatile compounds and spores. The next stage of moisture-induced damage, the decay development, forms a serious risk for structural strength depending on moisture content, materials, temperature, and time. The worst decay damage cases in North Europe are found in the floors and lower parts of walls, where water accumulates due to different reasons. Modeling of mold growth and decay development based on humidity, temperature, exposure time, and material will give new tools for the evaluation of durability of different building materials and structures. The models make it possible to evaluate the risk and development of mold growth and to analyze the critical conditions needed for the start of biological growth. The model is also a tool to simulate the progress of mold and decay development under different conditions on the structure surfaces. This requires that the moisture capacity and moisture transport properties in the material and at the surface layer be taken into account in the simulations. In practice there are even more parameters affecting mold growth, e.g., thickness of the material layers combined with the local surface heat and mass transfer coefficients. Therefore, the outcome of the simulations and in situ observations of biological deterioration may not agree. In the present article, results on mold growth in different materials and wall assemblies will be shown and existing models on the risk of mold growth development will be evaluated. One of the results of a newly finished large Finnish research project ‘modeling of mold growth’ is an improved and extended mathematical model for mold growth. This model and more detailed research results will be published in other papers.

Towards modelling of decay risk of wooden materials

An empirical model for wood decay development which can be incorporated into a hygrothermal model of building physics is presented. The model is applied to the ERA-40 reanalysis data, based on six-hour weather observations in Europe, to estimate wood decay in different parts of Europe. These studies provide new tools for evaluating the durability and service life of wooden products and a preliminary European wood decay risk level map. The effects of the projected climate change on wood decay may also be considered by this methodology.ZusammenfassungVorgestellt wird ein empirisches Modell zur Holzfäuleentwicklung, welches sich in ein bauphysikalisches hygrothermisches Modell einbauen lässt. Zur Bestimmung der Holzfäule in verschiedenen Teilen Europas benutzt das Modell die aufbereiteten ERA-40 Daten, die auf sechsstündigen Wetterbeobachtungen in Europa basieren. Diese Untersuchungen liefern neue Möglichkeiten zur Bestimmung der Dauerhaftigkeit und der Nutzungsdauer von Holzprodukten sowie eine vorläufige Darstellung des Holzfäulerisikos in Europa. Die Einflüsse der erwarteten Klimaänderung auf die Holzfäule können mit diesem Verfahren ebenfalls untersucht werden.

Moisture Buffer Value of Building Materials

Building materials and furnishing used in contact with indoor air may have a positive effect to moderate the variations of indoor humidity seen in occupied buildings. Thus, very low humidity can be alleviated in winter, as well as can high indoor humidity in summer and during high occupancy loads. This way, materials can be used as a passive means of establishing indoor climatic conditions, which are comfortable for human occupancy, or for safe storing of artefacts which are sensible to humidity variation. But so far there has been a lack of a standardized figure to characterize the moisture buffering ability of materials. It has been the objective of a recent (ongoing until mid-2005) Nordic project to come up with such a definition, and to declare it in the form of a NORDTEST method. Apart from the definition of the term Moisture Buffer Value, there will also be a declaration of a test protocol which expresses how materials should be tested. Finally as a part of the project, some Round Robin Tests will be carried out on various typical building materials. The paper gives an account on the definition of the Moisture Buffer Value, it will outline the content of the test protocol, and it will give some examples of results from the Round Robin Tests. (Less)

Investigation of microclimate by CFD modeling of moisture interactions between air and constructions

There is a strong demand for accurate moisture modeling since moisture poses a risk for both the constructions and the indoor climate. This investigation has special focus on moisture modeling. This study describes a new model based on a CFD tool enhanced to include both detailed modeling of airflows in rooms and heat and moisture transfer in walls by applying them as fluid walls. The impacts of different boundary conditions and how these influence microclimates in rooms are investigated, in a 3D configuration. The studied microclimate is a piece of furniture placed near a cold exterior wall.

Determination of hygrothermal properties of cementitious mortar: The effect of partial replacement of cement by incinerated sewage sludge ash

Two sewage sludge ashes were used as substitutes for cement and their effect on the hygrothermal properties of mortar was examined. Different cement to ash ratios and two ash pre-treatment methods (water washing and grinding) were in focus. The impact of cement replacement by sewage sludge ashes on thermal conductivity, sorption isotherms, water vapour permeability and carbonation was described with standard cement-based mortar as the reference material. Measurement results showed that thermal conductivity decreased by 15% when 30% of the cement was replaced by sewage sludge ash. Water vapour permeability increased as the cement to ash ratio was reduced. Sorption was tested by two methods; although differences in the sorption isotherms of mortars were reported when a climatic chamber method was applied, no differences, or only minor differences, were observed with the desiccator method. Measurements revealed that cement-based mortar possessed a higher content of carbonate than cement-ash-based mortar, and it thus appears that the carbonation rate was higher when the cement content was high.

Rapid detection and identification of Stachybotrys and Chaetomium species using tissue PCR analysis

Indoor fungi are a worldwide problem causing negative health effects for infected buildings occupants and even deterioration of building structures. Different fungal species affect buildings and their inhabitants differently. Therefore, rapid and accurate identification of fungi to the species level is essential for health risk assessment and building remediation. This study focuses on molecular identification of two common indoor fungal genera: Stachybotrys and Chaetomium. This study proposes two new DNA barcode candidates for Stachybotrys and Chaetomium: the gene encoding mitogen activated protein kinase (hogA) and the intergenic region between histone 3 and histone 4 (h3-h4) as well as it introduces a rapid - 3.5h - protocol for direct Stachybotrys and Chaetomium species identification, which bypasses culture cultivation, DNA extraction and DNA sequencing.

Visualization of the structural changes in plywood and gypsum board during the growth of Chaetomium globosum and Stachybotrys chartarum

Fungal growth in indoor environments is associated with many negative health effects. Many studies focus on brown- and white-rot fungi and their effect on wood, but there is none that reveals the influence of soft-rot fungi, such as Stachybotrys spp. and Chaetomium spp., on the structure of building materials such as plywood and gypsum wallboard. This study focuses on using micro-computed tomography (microCT) to investigate changes of the structure of plywood and gypsum wallboard during fungal degradation by S. chartarum and C. globosum. Changes in the materials as a result of dampness and fungal growth were determined by measuring porosity and pore shape via microCT. The results show that the composition of the building material influenced the level of penetration by fungi as shown by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Plywood appeared to be the most affected, with the penetration of moisture and fungi throughout the whole thickness of the sample. Conversely, fungi grew only on the top cardboard in the gypsum wallboard and they did not have significant influence on the gypsum wallboard structure. The majority of the observed changes in gypsum wallboard occurred due to moisture. This paper suggests that the mycelium distribution within building materials and the structural changes, caused by dampness and fungal growth, depend on the type of the material.