Trends and Anomalies in Hygrothermal Material Properties from the ASHRAE 1696 Research program

Budget and time constraints preclude the determination of specific material properties for most energy and hygrothermal design, simulation and modeling tasks. Practitioners rely heavily on material property data included in computer program databases and/or from published resources such as Chapter 26 of the ASHRAE Handbook of Fundamentals (HOF), which has long been one of the best and preferred industry resources for thermal and moisture properties of insulations and building materials. This paper presents an overview of the ASHRAE 1696 Research Project, “Thermal, Moisture and Air Transport Property Values for New Building and Insulating Materials.” Subject materials (15 new and 9 updated) are addressed; test methods for 10 hygrothermal material properties are summarized; and finally, trends and anomalies are highlighted.

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