SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS OF AN ENERGYPLUS SIMULATION MODEL OF THE AMBIENT HUMIDITY IN AN OLD BUILDING

In France, old buildings (built before 1948) represent 10 millions of dwellings and have to be retrofitted. However, the presence of the moisture in old buildings may be problematic for retrofitting solutions. Indeed, those may accentuate surface condensation and cause moulds, degrade the structure or reduce the comfort. That is why it is essential to predict hygrothermal behaviour of these buildings. A sensitivity analysis is performed to know the sensitivity of ambient moisture to input data. EnergyPlus with heat and moisture transfer algorithm is used for this analysis. Two categories of parameters significantly affect ambient moisture: infiltrations that cause 20% of influence and hygrothermal properties of materials (mainly thickness and diffusion resistance factor). The influence of materials depends on their proportions in the building.