WUFI Building Science Workshop
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- jointly presented by BRANZ, pro clima and Fraunhofer Institute of Building Physics, Germany.
The recently held WUFI building science workshops held in Wellington and Christchurch proved very successful with very favourable reports of WUFI as an invaluable tool for the future and knowledge of building science greatly developed.
WUFI allows computer modelling, simulation and analyses of vapour, moisture and heat flow in timber and steel construction
based on real New Zealand climate conditions and is used extensively world-wide
Participants learned how to simulate construction details in regards to suitability and safety margins. The WUFI simulations demonstrate what types of constructions are fail safe in the New Zealand climate.
Manfred Kehrer from ORNL (USA) and Fraunhofer IBP (Germany), Stephen McNeil from BRANZ and Lothar Moll from pro clima presented the workshps. Attendees were walked through modern and revolutionary new building envelope design concepts learining how the deleterious effects of moisture (both liquid and vapour) accrue, and how to remedy these. New techniques were shown, and new material applications were introduced to show how to eliminate moisture-related problems in buildings, such as mould and decay. The overview ended with an extensive question-and-answer session that allowed attendees to interact informally with the presenters.
Manfred Kehrer
Diploma in Technical Physics
University of Applied Science (Munich)
SR. R& D Staff, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
(USA)
Group Manager, Software
Development
Fraunhofer, IBF Germany
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Stephen McNeil
Building Physicist
BRANZ
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Lothar Moll
Dipl-Ing. Holztechnik
Managing Director pro clima Germany
Head of Technics
R&D, Production
Innovator of Intelligent
Building Sealing
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WUFI allows you to:
- simulate, calculate and analyse the heat and humidity flow through any kind of construction.
- determine the moisture load in the individual component layers and their boundaries
- assess the risk of mould and rot in the construction.
- estimate the effects of external parameters on the design: temperature, humidity, rain, sunshine, orientation and wind direction.
- change the effects of air leakage (convective moisture input) according to the quality of airtightness of the construction.
WUFI – Analysing mould and decay in constructions
Rot and mould damage of building structures all over the world, their causes often not precisely known, require a simulation method, whereby humidity and water transport (vapour and moisture) as well as heat flux (heat flow) can be reliably simulated and analysed within both the construction and the individual layers.
Stationary calculation methods are insufficient. More accurate methods are called transient calculation methods. These programs can calculate and display the flow within different component layers based on actual climate conditions.
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WUFI - A user friendly application for New Zealand
WUFI, the world's first such transient calculation programwas developed in the early 90s by the Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics (IBP) in Germany. It is now the leading program in the world with thousands of licences. Climate records from more than 7,000 locations allow worldwide application. BRANZ converged many of New Zealand's major NIWA climate data sets and these have been incorporated in the latest WUFI update. This allows for a more user friendly application in New Zealand as previously climate data had to be individually converged from the standard Meteonorm to the WUFI format.
WUFI considers all the constructional characteristics of materials; not just the usual thermal conductivity and water vapour diffusion, but also parameters such as capillarity, sorption, heat capacity, porosity and parameters that change their values ​​as a function of different moisture situations.
Realistic conditions
For the calculation of humidity and heat flows, the real hourly climate conditions are the bases. These include indoor and outdoor temperature, and humidity, solar absorption and evaporation, wind and rain, and considering the orientations of the building parts, such as compass direction, slope, surface characteristics and the short-and long-wave radiation absorption. WUFI can even include in the calculation convective effects, i.e. leaks in the airtightness layer of the building envelope. That means that 24 calculations per day of heat and moisture flow are created based on the actual climate conditions.
State of the Art
WUFI has been widely validated, i.e. compared with the results of field tests on real buildings, ensuring that the simulation corresponds to the real situation.
In addition to the heat and moisture flow, WUFI can also display realistically in the design stage the moisture content within the individual component layers and at their boundaries.
The advantages and benefits for you of WUFI are the fast, safe and reliable analyses of the properties and safety margins of constructions. You can select and exchange individual component layers very easily and the transient simulation shows the change of heat and moisture flows, the implications for the design and the individual component layers in respect to mould and rot risk.
- You can run WUFI simulations to calculate complicated construction details, such as designs that are diffusion tight on the outside (i.e. living roofs) to determine their safety margins.
- You can also use WUFI to analyse and explain the true causes of structural damage due to moisture.
If you need information about WUFI please contact us
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