The Influence of Hygroscopic Materials on the Fluctuation of Relative Humidity in Museums Located in Historical Buildings

• Type: Article in International Scientific Journal
• Date: 2020

Authors

João M. P. Q. Delgado (Author) FEUP; Cláudia Ferreira (Author) FEUP; Vasco Peixoto de Freitas (Author) FEUP

Journal

Title: Studies in Conservation

Vol. 65 No. 3

Pages: 127-141

ISSN: 0039-3630

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Indexing

ISI Web of Knowledge

Scopus

Other information

DOI: 10.1080/00393630.2019.1638666

Abstract (EN): The preservation of artefacts in museum collections is profoundly affected by fluctuations in temperature and, especially, relative humidity (RH). Since the late nineteenth century, many studies have been carried out on the best way to control hygrothermal conditions. In old buildings located in maritime temperate climate zones (such as Portugal) with strong thermal inertia, and which have low ventilation rate (relative to the volume and number of visitors), daily and seasonal hygroscopic inertia may help to assure the maintenance of RH stabilization conditions. The use of expensive active systems may be minimized through the passive behaviour of internal finishing building materials. This work presents the results of an experimental laboratory study conducted in a flow chamber to demonstrate the enormous potential of hygroscopic materials in stabilizing interior relative humidity. Based in these results and in-situ monitoring in a museum housed in a building, located in Porto, with a typical construction of the 1950s (granite masonry and reinforced concrete slabs), a numerical analysis was done to quantify the influence of hygroscopic materials in stabilizing the interior relative humidity. © 2019, © The International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works 2019.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific

No. of pages: 15