On the importance of desiccant during the determination of water vapor permeability of permeable insulation material

Abstract

Water vapor permeability of building materials is usually measured using dry cup test according to the ISO 12572 standard. For this test, suitable adsorbing desiccant should be used to provide stable low vapor pressure conditions within the cup and, thus, to ensure the good accuracy of the measurement. In this work, different adsorbing desiccants mentioned in the ISO 12572 standard are tested for measurements performed on wood fiber insulation. For each experiment, relative humidity is monitored inside the dry cup. The results indicate that 0 %RH is not reached inside the dry cup and boundary condition is not always stable for highly permeable construction materials, depending on the adsorbing desiccants. The impact of these observation is evaluated on the determination of water vapor diffusion resistance factor and compared to other sources of uncertainties.