Stochastic modelling of hygrothermal performance of highly insulated wood framed walls

As energy consumption has become an important issue in building design, most building codes require a higher insulation level for building envelopes to improve the building's energy efficiency. However, the highly insulated walls may lead to a higher risk of moisture problems. Although hygrothermal simulation has been widely used to investigate the moisture performance of wood framed walls, the uncertainties of input parameters such as material properties, boundary conditions and moisture loads, may lead to discrepancies between simulation results and actual performance of the envelope. This paper investigates the hygrothermal performance of highly insulated wood framed walls using a stochastic approach, which combines the Latin Hypercube Sampling method and Factorial Design to take into account the uncertainties of material properties, boundary conditions and moisture loads (air leakage and rain leakage). The investigated walls include an I-joist deep cavity wall, two exterior insulated walls, and a conventional 2 × 6 stud wall as the baseline. It is found that under the moisture loads introduced (i.e. air leakage and rain leakage), the exterior insulated walls have a lower mold growth risk than the deep cavity wall and the 2 × 6 stud baseline wall. The uncertainties of material properties do not result in significant variations in simulation results such as moisture content and mold growth index as uncertainties of moisture loads do. The hygrothermal performance of these highly insulated walls is more sensitive to moisture loads and the significance of the moisture loads (air leakage and rain leakage) depends on climatic conditions.