Application of the moisture potential scale working zone for calculating building envelopes moisture regime

Possibility to replace a classical moisture potential scale to the moisture potential scale working zone for building enclosure structures moisture regime calculation was proved. According to four experiments results (thermal conductivity, vapor permeability, sorption, moisture conductivity), the moisture potential scale for an aerated concrete sample was constructed. It was obtained that for the investigated aerated concrete sample, the highest moisture potential value is 54125 Pa were achieved under a temperature of 20оС and a weight moisture content of 49.7%. It is shown that all values of the moisture potential scale locating to the right of 1389 Pa are not involved in a calculation, since the moisture potential can not exceed 1389 Pa at any point of the enclosing structure while calculations. That is why only the part of the moisture potential scale is required for practical use, which is proposed to be called the «the moisture potential scale working zone». The moisture potential scale working zone introduction enabled to reduce the number of required wetting ranges for aerated concrete from 15 to 6. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is illustrated by the calculation of a single-layer enclosing structure. The structure was divided into 10 equal parts of 0.04 m each. In each section of the enclosure structure temperature, moisture potential and saturated water vapor pressure were determined. As a result, the wall moisture content was calculated as 10.1% by mass. It is noted that the proposed approach can be applied in moisture calculations for any types of building enclosure structures with any number of layers.