HomeLab

New Cat, New Data, New Designs

July 27, 2020

Live from HomeLab it’s the newest member of the Thermal Mass and Buoyancy Ventilation Research Project team, Sonic! More on our scrappy, little intern later, we’ve got fresh Wood Chimney Experiment results.

Longhaired black kitten shining in the sun

TMBV Research Project’s last post discussed equalizing the environment of HomeLab to improve the accuracy of the Concrete and Wood Chimney Experiments. While the screen on the eastern side is blocking direct solar radiation, the team discovered a new heat source. The roof of the carport is significantly hotter, even on the underside, than the team thought. This was discovered while trying to understand the Chimney’s airflow data. To show how trapped heat can affect the experiments we will take a look at the long-awaited Wood Chimney Experiment Data.

The above airflow data was taken from the first week the Wood Chimney was up and running and shows both updraft and downdraft. Automatically, the Optimal Tuning Strategy is validated for wood, as well as concrete, by the existence of both airflow directions within the experiment. Go, Wood Chimney, Go! However, the updraft is nearly twice as strong as the downdraft which did not quite make sense. The team looked back to their thermal imaging photos for an answer as to why there is such a large difference between the updraft and downdraft.

Thermal camera image of the top of concrete chimney before radiant barrier installed. Temperature registering at 41.7 °C. — Top of Wood Chimney

Thermal camera image of the side of concrete chimney after radiant barrier installed. Temperature registering at 33.0 °C. — Top of Wood Chimney

The thermal imaging photos show that the top of the Wood Chimney Experiment is much, much hotter than the side of the chimney. This can cause a build-up of hot air at the top of the chimney which explains why downdraft is so much lower. While in downdraft, the air is brought in from the top and expelled out of the bottom of the chimney. It works the opposite in updraft, bringing air in from the bottom and expelling out of the top of the chimney. If there is much more hot air at the top of the chimney, that causes turbulence, making it harder to bring in air during downdraft and too easy in updraft. So what is causing this heat at the top? The HomeLab ceiling!

Thermal camera image of carport ceiling registering at 43.2 °C. — HomeLab ceiling

Thermal camera image of radiant barrier on carport ceiling registering at 32.5 °C. — HomeLab ceiling

The team learned, from the thermal images above, that the ceiling of the carport was nearly 120 degrees Fahrenheit, which clearly was the reason for the heat build-up at the top of the Wood Chimney Experiment. To combat this the team stapled a radiant barrier to the rafter of the carport to insulate and reflect heat away from the tops of the chimney, trapping it at the ceiling. The radiant barrier is made of Reflectix insulation which looks like shiny bubble wrap. In the thermal images, you can see the radiant barrier lowers the temperature above the chimney by nearly 10 degrees.

Thermal camera image of the top of concrete chimney after radiant barrier installed. Temperature registering at 33.7 °C. — top of chimney before radiant barrier

The radiant barrier works! Both the thermal images and data show that the excess heat at the top of the chimney was increasing the updraft and making the downdraft more turbulent. The top surface of the chimney also dropped 8 degrees. The amount of air per second is now mirrored in updraft and downdraft at about 0.05 l/s.

sizing pod spread sheet — TMBVRP team starts designing once more, not without an analog spreadsheet though

design charrette of pods — TMBVRP team starts designing once more, not without an analog spreadsheet though

in the last post, the team left y’all with thoughts on a “Human Scale” experiment, to test the Optimal Tuning Strategy and App at a larger scale that can be experienced. After a discussion with the entire Thermal Mass and Buoyancy Ventilation Research Project team, including partners at McGill University and Rural Studio faculty, everyone found the Human Scale experiment is not necessary to validate the Optimal Tuning Strategy. The data from the Chimney Experiments is primo and the team can move on to designing a permanent, Inhabitable Structure. The Inhabitable Structure will be a usable example of the effects of coupling thermal and buoyancy ventilation in a building as well as being a mechanism for producing data. Rural Studio will be able to use the spaces on the day-to-day, but it will also show people the system works and can be applied in the community. While the team has thoroughly enjoyed learning about design through crafting an experiment, they are excited to get back to architecture! There is still plenty of science to come, don’t be fooled.

Balancing science and design seemed like too big a job for 4 students, 2 cats, and a Copper so the team hired a new pet intern. Meet Sonic! He was found at just 4-weeks old out on a county road with only his thoughts and half a tail. As you can see, he is getting along great with the other interns and doing some great sketching. Stay Tuned for updates on Inhabitable Structure design and the teams myriad of four-legged friends.

Tags: airflow, buoyancy ventilation, HomeLab, Inhabitable Structure, natural ventilation, thermal image, thermal mass, Thermal Mass and Buoyancy Ventilation

Wood you believe we did it?

June 15, 2020

Timber pun prepared and deployed? Scientific apparatus built? Yes to both! Live from HomeLab, the Thermal Mass and Buoyancy Ventilation Research Project team is proud to present to you, the Wood Chimney Experiment! No science lessons today folks, just photos.

Students posing with their test chimneys.

SPOILER ALERT! On the left, you see our tried and true, the one who taught us so much, the Concrete Chimney Experiment. On the right, the Thermal Mass and Buoyancy Ventilation family welcomes their newest member, the Wood Chimney Experiment. Now let’s look at the building process.

The top and bottom insulation blocks are created by adhering two 6″ x 3′ 7″ x 3′ 7″ to make them 1″ thick. If you would like a reminder on why this insulation is necessary for the experiment phase and not necessarily for an actualized building you can read this post. The airflow cones are carved out so that they align with the airflow opening of the chimney interior chamber.

Student stapling gasket to foam insulation.

Here we’ve got the chimney walls coming together! Four sandwiches of ZIP sheathing, GeoFoam, and Wood Thermal Mass Panels all attached to create an interior chamber.

Three walls up, the fourth needs its sensors! The TMBVRP team thinks it would be absolutely wonderful to be in a space surrounded by edge grain wood that is also naturally ventilated.

Air-flow sensor set up for wood chimney.

The Sensirion airflow sensors will also be in this experiment. Incorporating how sensors can be attached within the chimney and their cords can make it out of the chimney without being squished is a crucial part of the design.

Students installing sensors into wood chimney.

Before the Wood Chimney Experiment interior chamber is sealed, the fourth wall containing the temperature signal sensors must be attached. The temperature signals, read about temperature signals here, will be sensed with thermocouples and heatflux sensors. Next step in the process will be building up the insulation surrounding the interior chamber.

Students with completed interior chimney. — Pre-Insulation

Completed wood chimney. — Pre-Insulation

The Thermal Mass and Buoyancy Ventilation team is aware they used to refer to these scientific apparatus as “Desktop Experiment’s”. Technically the inner chamber could stand on a desk, but a more appropriate name might be Carport Experiments or Taller than the Team Experiments. Let’s just call them the Chimney Experiments for clarity. These experiments are still the first and smallest experiments for the scalable Optimal Tuning Strategy. And look, the Wood Chimney Experiment is done! Batt insulation and 2″ GeoFoam walls encase the interior chamber and ZIP tape is used to seal the entire experiment.

Thank you to all who have encouraged and supported the Thermal Mass and Buoyancy Ventilation team! The team is very excited to have reached this point, but the work is no where near over. It will take time to learn a new data retrieval and analysis workflow for the new sensors. The team is excited to get to it, but first we are going to celebrate our Wood Chimney Experiment! Cheers y’all and STAY TUNED!

Tags: HomeLab, mass timber, natural ventilation, passive strategies, research, research project, Text Box Experiment, thermal mass, Thermal Mass and Buoyancy Ventilation, wood chimney experiment, wood grain

Calibrate and Graduate

May 14, 2020

Exciting things have been happening at HomeLab lately! First, the Thermal Mass and Buoyancy Ventilation Research Project (TMBVRP) Team were able to install airflow sensors into the Concrete Chimney Experiment. Second, the chimney has brought in some impressive data. And third, the TMBVRP team participated in an end of the semester presentation and round table discussion with their big sister team, the Mass Timber Breathing Wall Research Project, and a cast of professionals in the architecture and building science research field.

interior view of chimney, as well as cable routing through a window, and a laptop showing datalogging — the airflow sensors are wired from within the chimney through, a window into a computer, and into the HomeLab laundry room

This week the team received their Sensirion differential pressure air flow sensors. The sensors record a difference in dynamic and static pressure which the team uses to calculate bulk flow. Bulk flow is the total airflow at the sensor location. The team installed two sensors into the Concrete Chimney Experiment, one at the bottom and one at the top, to measure updraft and downdraft ventilation created by the thermal mass.

Assembling air flow sensor — figuring out the sensor to laptop connection

Cory installing panels to test chimney — figuring out the sensor to laptop connection

Just to refresh your memory, updraft occurs during the night when the cool, night air is brought in the bottom ventilation opening, warmed by the thermal mass, and exhausted out the top. Downdraft occurs during the day, the warm, exterior air is drawn into the top ventilation opening, is cooled by offloading heat to the thermal mass, and vents out the bottom. Being able to measure the direction and amount of ventilation is critical to understand if the Concrete Chimney Experiment is performing as expected.

Chimney heat transfer diagram during the day — Diagram of day time downdraft

Chimney heat transfer diagram during the night — Diagram of day time downdraft

And the results are in, our initial measurements from the airflow sensors do show that during the day the chimney is operating in downdraft and during the night it operates in updraft. This gives us proof of concept, that thermal mass is able to alter the atmosphere inside the chimney so that it goes against the exterior environment.

graph showing airflow in the test chimney

The GreenTeg temperature sensors have also brought in proof of concept data, showing that the thermal mass is having a damping effect on the interior air. It is important that the temperatures of the thermal mass and interior air cycle with the daily swing in temperature so that heat is absorbed by the mass during the day and offloaded during the night. This shows that the internal thermal mass is effectively moderating the temperature in the chimney and causing continuous ventilation. We are continuing our testing to further calibrate the amount of ventilation to achieve the most efficient and effective heat transfer between the internal thermal mass and air.

To wrap up our undergraduate work, we had a roundtable presentation via Zoom to give an update on where our work is and share our exciting results with Auburn, our collaborators at McGill, and professionals in the architecture and building science research field. This panel included Billie Faircloth, a partner and research director at the architecture firm Kieran Timberlake in Philadelphia, PA. Second, we were joined by Jonathan Grinham, who is a Lecturer in Architecture and Research Associate at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Last but not least, is Z Smith. Z is a Principal and the Director of Sustainability & Performance at Eskew Dumez Ripple in New Orleans, LA.

many professors, practicing architects, and students gathered over zoom meeting for a round table discussion of projects — super stars

slide from round table meeting showing airflow through the newbern firehall — super stars

It was a privilege to be able to present and have a productive discussion with such esteemed professionals. We gained valuable insight on how to best relay the work we are doing do both those in the research field and the common person. In addition, their backgrounds led to an intriguing discussion on how The Optimal Tuning Strategy could be implemented at the building scale. It was especially awesome to discuss the successful data the team recently got form the Concrete Chimney Experiment. Both the data and the discussion gave the Thermal Mass and Buoyancy Ventilation Research Project Team a boost of confidence and pride in their work. It not always easy for these architecture students to wrap their heads around the science, but the hard work paid off. Thank you to Rural Studio, Salmaan Craig, Kiel Moe, David Kennedy, and the reviewers for a positive end of the undergraduate phase of the Thermal Mass and Buoyancy Ventilation Research Project.

Team walking on the street with their new outfit — From left to right, from previous coat owner to current: Fergie-Rowe, Preston-Cory, Jake-Jeff, and Anna-Livia

Final shout out to the incredible Mass Timber Breathing Wall Research Project Team. As they complete the paper on their research and graduate from the Master’s program they still had time to do something very sweet for their little sister team. They passed along their Rural Studio lab coats, crossing out their names and writing the names of the TMBVRP team members. Their work, dedication, and attitude could not be a better example for the TMBVRP team to emulate. From one research project team to the other, thank you for helping us whenever we needed and being the best big sister team imaginable. We hope to live up the legacy! Well, everyone, stay tuned (optimally tuned) this summer for the start of the graduate program at HomeLab.

Tags: graduateprogram, HomeLab, natural ventilation, passive, passive strategies, presentation, research, research project, Test Box Experiment, thermal mass, Thermal Mass and Buoyancy Ventilation

If You Know, You Airflow

April 21, 2020

Ready for some more math? Well, you’re in luck! Today’s post is dedicated to calibrating the size of the ventilation openings on the Concrete Chimney Experiment.The Thermal Mass and Buoyancy Ventilation Research Project (TMBVRP) team has been researching equations for the “effective” opening.

diagram showing the exploded axon of the chimney test, with ventilation openings highlighted — exploded axon of the Concrete Chimney Experiment

The effective opening size differs from the total opening size because it accounts for friction. For example, 1’ x 1’ window has a total opening of 1 square foot, but due to friction caused by airflow around the edges of the window the effective opening may only be 0.9 square feet. With that concept in mind, we can look into why and how the TMBVRP team has been improving their experiment through trial and error.

diagrams showing changes to ventilation strategies — section through the concrete chimney showing the insulation and ventilation openings.

The original ventilation opening for Concrete Chimney Experiment was a 12″ long PVC pipe with a 3/4″ diameter. After reviewing the temperature data of both the interior space and thermal mass, the team saw that the airflow was being choked. This means the effective area of the opening was not allowing for enough ventilation. This caused kept the thermal mass from fully absorbing or offloading the heat from the air. The length to width ratio of the pipe was too high, creating unwanted friction, and slowing the airflow.

mathematical formulas explaining the change in ventilation hole size

For the next ventilation opening iteration, the team needed to reduce the friction by making the ventilation opening a “sharp opening.” This means that the length/thickness of the opening is significantly less than the diameter of the opening. The 1′ thick layer of GeoFoam on the top and bottom of the chimney was preventing the ability to have a “sharp opening.” So, the team carved out the top and bottom insulation in the shape of a cone to negate the friction. The bottom of the funnel was capped with a 6″ square of ½” insulation with a ¾” diameter opening. The ¾” diameter opening is the actual area of the opening, the effective area after we calculated for friction is only about ½” in diameter.

Third times the charm when it comes to ventilation openings! The ¾” opening in the ½” insulation had a diameter to thickness ratio of ~0.6. After further investigation a true sharp opening needs to have a diameter to thickness ratio that is much less. Due to this finding we replaced the ½” insulation with a 1/16 in acrylic sheet to achieve a ratio of ~0.1. Even after all these calculations we won’t know for certain if we are achieving sufficient airflow in the chimney until we can measure the exact velocity.

version three of ventilation hole sizing

The Thermal Mass and Buoyancy Ventilation Research Project team is looking into how to install airflow sensors into the Concrete Chimney Experiment. Until then, they will keep on analyzing temperature data and designing their experiment.

At Rural Studio, students learn through construction that the design of a building goes far beyond our architectural drawings. Builders and construction workers are designers. Through the Rural Studio Research Projects students are now learning the complexities of designing experimental methods and scientific instruments. The TMBVRP team has developed a deep appreciation for this avenue of design they may not have considered before.

two twin small white dogs sitting in two folding lawn chairs

two twin small white dogs sitting in two folding lawn chairs looking up

Another important note from this week; Copper’s brother Wolfie came for a visit! The brothers love chilling at HomeLab and keeping an eye on the Concrete Chimney Experiment. Stay tuned to see what the Thermal Mass and Buoyancy Ventilation Research Project Team learn next!

Tags: airflow, buoyancy ventilation, HomeLab, natural ventilation, research, research project, Test Box Experiment, thermal mass, Thermal Mass and Buoyancy Ventilation

HomeLab

April 1, 2020

The Thermal Mass and Buoyancy Ventilation Research Team, like the rest of the world, came back from Spring Break to a less clear future. As everyone is trying to navigate moving work, school, and life online, the team along with Rural Studio and Auburn University faculty are making a plan for the possibility of not returning to campus until Fall 2020 or beyond.

A beautiful Newbern sky from the front porch of the Red Barn before Spring Break

Before Spring Break, the team along with the rest of the 5th-year class at Rural Studio underwent a “Pre-Stress Test.” These presentations by each team update Auburn University faculty members including Margaret Fletcher, Rusty Smith, Christian Dagg, and Justin Miller, on the status of each of the thesis projects. The faculty then advise the teams on how to best proceed in order to be approved for building in the summer. The TMBVRP team received feedback on how to better communicate the scientific concepts on which their research is based. They were also encouraged to not rush their research in order to build bigger. After Pre-Stress Test the students left Hale County for Spring Break. Now they are back, figuring out how to research, design, and build from home.

the testing chimney in the teams carport with a kayak — Live from HomeLab the team is already using the tool trailer to manipulate the Concrete Chimney Experiment

box trailer containing tools in a backyard — Live from HomeLab the team is already using the tool trailer to manipulate the Concrete Chimney Experiment

Fortunately, there are circumstances that are encouraging for continuing the Thermal Mass and Buoyancy Research Project at home. First, teammates 3/4 teammates were on spring break together and already live together. This means no social distancing is needed between 3/4 of the team. Second, the Concrete Chimney Experiment resides in the carport theses student’s home (from now on referred to as HomeLab). Third, Rural Studio was able to bring a tool trailer to the HomeLab with contactless delivery. So now, the TMBVRP team can continue their rigorous testing and experiment calibration from the comforts of a 110-year-old house in Greensboro, AL. You’ve gotta love scientific research Rural Studio style.

Cory talking to Jeff through Skype — skyping Jeff from the new HomeStudio

Meeting room — skyping Jeff from the new HomeStudio

After two weeks of self-isolation, the fourth teammate will be able to join the team at the HomeLab where they can continue analyzing data and manipulating the Concrete Chimney Experiment. Their plans for the Summer are to insert airflow sensors into the chimney in order to properly resize the ventilation openings and to get a Wood Chimney Experiment up and running. The TMBVRP team is thankful for all the support from Auburn University, Rural Studio, and their partners at McGill University. Their goal is to keep pushing their experiment while staying safe and sheltering at home. To the amazing Rural Studio students moving on in this difficult time, the team wants to thank you for an incredible year together and for setting a wonderful example of how to work hard with bold hearts.

Tags: HomeLab, research, research project, Thermal Mass and Buoyancy Ventilation