Comparison of Numerical HMT Codes to Simulate MBV Test of Hemp-Earth Composites

Bio-based and earth materials are growingly used for the building envelopes because of their numerous benefits such as slight environmental impact, great hygrothermal performances, effective regulation of the perceived indoor air quality and human comfort. In such materials, the phenomenon of mass transfer is complex and has a great impact on the performance of building envelope. Therefore, it is important to identify and understand the hygrothermal phenomena to be able to simulate accurately the envelope behavior. Nevertheless, the classical models that depict hygric transport within building materials seem not accurate enough for bio-based materials as they are simplified on several points of view. The correlation that exists between water content and relative humidity is mostly simplified and is modeled by a single curve, the hygric storage capacity is often overstated and the hysteresis is neglected. This paper deals with numerical study of hygric transfer within hemp-earth building material by using WUFI® Pro 6.5, a commercial software, and TMC code developed at the LGCGM (Moissette and Bart, 2009) . This code was validated regarding EN 15026 standard (Moissette and Bart, 2009) and has evolved over the years by integrating the hysteresis phenomena (Aït-Oumeziane et al., 2015). Thus, a significant enhancement of the numerical simulations on desorption phase was shown. This study investigates the simulation of MBV test performed on a hemp-earth material for which only the adsorption curve is known as input. Missing parameters (water vapor permeability and desorption curve) are fitted considering the first cycle of MBV test with TMC code. Then, MBV test is simulated with WUFI® Pro 6.5 and TMC code without and with hysteresis. The results highlight the need to include hysteresis to accurately simulate dynamic hygric phenomena, and show that it is possible to find missing parameters by fitting dynamic solicitations.