In Situ Airtightness Measurement Using Compressed Air Flow Characteristics

Seolyee Han, Hakgeun Jeong, Jinsook Lee and Jonghun Kim ()
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Seolyee Han: Energy ICT Research Department, Korea Institute of Energy Research, Daejeon 34129, Republic of Korea
Hakgeun Jeong: Energy ICT Research Department, Korea Institute of Energy Research, Daejeon 34129, Republic of Korea
Jinsook Lee: Department of Architectural Engineering, Chungnam National University, Daejeon 34134, Republic of Korea
Jonghun Kim: Energy ICT Research Department, Korea Institute of Energy Research, Daejeon 34129, Republic of Korea

Energies, 2023, vol. 16, issue 19, 1-13

Abstract: The airtightness of a building has a significant impact on energy savings, structural longevity, and indoor air quality for occupants. Therefore, it is essential to accurately measure the airtightness of buildings, though the widely used fan pressurization method suffers from several shortcomings. For this reason, transient methods have recently emerged to assess airtightness by monitoring pressure changes over time, but studies using transient methods in this field are rare. In this study, we selected three representative buildings to conduct field tests to verify the practical applicability of the improved transient method. To verify the results of the transient method, we conducted a comparison experiment with the blower door test: a widely used measurement method. When measuring the effective leakage area, the average standard deviation of the transient method was 0.903 cm 2 , which was much smaller than the blower door test result of 1.488 cm 2 . In addition, the recorded standard errors ranged from 0.197 cm 2 to 0.816 cm 2 for the transient method and from 0.269 cm 2 to 1.801 cm 2 for the blower door test. Notably, the transitional method was more reproducible than the blower door test while showing similar accuracy. Given these results, it is expected that the improved transitional method can be used to evaluate airtightness performance in the field.

Keywords: airtightness; leakage measurement; transient method; blower door; building envelope (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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