Water vapor transport to a semi-infinite material with simultaneous varying surface relative humidity and temperature

Abstract

The water vapor transfer between the indoor air and hygroscopic finishing materials is of importance for the moisture balance of the room. Most protocols for determining the effect are based on isothermal conditions and cycling relative humidity in the form of square wave or sinusoidal functions. A new analytical solution for a material exposed to a both time varying surface relative humidity and temperature is presented in the paper. The time varying temperature inside the material is assumed to follow the surface temperature throughout the material layer since the reaction time for temperature changes in a reasonable thin surface material is rather short compared with the one for moisture changes. The semi-infinite approach is justified by the fact that the penetration depth for moisture variations are very limited for diurnal variations. The analytical approach and solution are presented in the paper