The local climate parameters and their effect on heat and moisture transfer at the exterior of the building envelope.

The knowledge of the microclimate surrounding buildings is limited. Models are usually based on use of reference years, which have originally been developed for energy calculations. Reference years give general meteorological parameters, whilst critical situations in a moisture context, typically result from very local exposure of a given building. An example: In the Danish climate driving rain is an important source of moisture. Driving rain signifies rain drops striking the building envelope under the influence of wind. Describing the driving rain as a function of local characteristics and meteorological situations is rather complicated, and there is an outspoken need for guide lines with respect to hygrothermal calculations.
The project deals with the conversion from meteorological data to microclimate parameters as a function local characteristics such as topography, obstacles, building geometry etc. Moreover, the relative significance of the different parameters in regard to hygrothermal calculations is subject to studies.
In the course of the project, full-scale measurement of the significant microclimate parameters are carried out at the institute; Driving rain phenomena are modelled applying computational fluid dynamics; Finally, the possible processing of driving rain data for hygrothermal calculations on the basis of the reference year will be investigated and compared to the findings of both measurements and simulations.