10:40 am - 12:00 pm | Room: Owens Corning Room | Session Chair: Graham Finch

Novel Testing Approaches

Design And Development Of A Two-Story Guarded Hot Box And Pressurized Spray Rack

Global carbon emissions continue to rise, and international consensus has mandated a direction to reduce emissions to curtail global warming. Carleton is supporting Canada’s mission through critical research into thermal and durability improvements for current and future buildings. Significant improvements in both new building assemblies and methods for retrofitting existing buildings are required. This includes the development of both new insulating materials and assembly methods, which need to be experimentally evaluated before their integration into the Canadian built environment. These assemblies need to be evaluated not only for their thermal performance, but a complete evaluation including detailed hygrothermal analysis, characterization of air leakage within the assembly and assessment of rain screen and sealing details to determine both the short- and long-term resiliency of the experimental wall systems and integration of penetrations such as fenestration and balconies. To meet these demands, a two-storey guarded hot box (GHB) and pressurized spray rack (PSR) were developed and designed for installation within Carleton University’s Centre for Advanced Building Envelope Research (CABER). Although designed to work in conjunction with each other, the GHB focuses on the steady state and transient measurement of the thermal performance, while the PSR focus on quantifying and qualitatively observing the air and water tightness of the full-scale assemblies. Through the development of the conceptual design, the complete testing parameters and capabilities were determined which encompass nearly all climates and indoor environments experience by buildings globally. Taking the desired capabilities, detailed designs were produced for both pieces of equipment, including the following capabilities: 

• Measure the effective thermal performance of both the complete wall assembly, and smaller sub-sections of the wall. 
• Measure and observe the air leakage and its impact on thermal performance of complete assemblies under a range of positive and negative pressure gradients across a test assembly. 
• Measure and observe the performance of installed rain screens and sealing details under varying rain events and pressure gradients. 
• Measure and observe the hygrothermal performance of assemblies, including the impact of rain events, freeze/thaw cycles and solar heating on vapour drive. 

This paper provides an overview of the design process undertaken to develop the two test apparatuses, from the development of the required testing capabilities, through the complete design ready for fabrication. A review of how the pieces of equipment will be utilized to support the development of complete assemblies for both new and retrofit construction is also presented.

Christopher Baldwin, Carleton University

Christopher Baldwin – Research Project Manager and Post-Doc, Carleton University Centre for Advanced Building Envelope Research (CABER)

Christopher completed his B.Eng., M.A.Sc. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at Carleton University. His thesis work during his M.A.Sc. and Ph.D. focused on reducing energy consumption within Canadian residential buildings through improvements in mechanical systems and the integration of new technologies, with a focus on the development of experimental test set-ups. Since 2019, he has overseen the development, design and construction of CABER, as well as the associated research projects within CABER. His research focuses on the experimental evaluation of building energy and building envelope systems, both in a controlled lab settings and through in-situ evaluations.