Application of an integrated indoor climate, HVAC and showcase model for the indoor climate performance of a museum (original) (raw)
Related papers
A comparison of HVAC systems for artwork conservation
International Journal of Refrigeration, 2007
The growing interest in Italy for its cultural heritage and the necessity for better conservation usually require that museums be provided with appropriate HVAC systems.
The house museum environment: A methodology for evaluation of hygrothermal conditions
2020
In recent decades, the obvious deterioration suffered by the collections exhibited in museum rooms has become alarming. The lack of environmental control is currently one of the most vulnerable points in the exhibition of objects and works of art in museums.In historic cities, museums are usually housed in old buildings or museum-houses that were not created specifically for the preservation of heritage objects. In this case, preventive conservation includes both the collections and the building itself. The possibilities of creating stable microclimates for the conservation of objects on display are reduced when it is not possible to change its architectural characteristics either due to lack of resources or because it is a priority to conserve the building envelope.The literature indicates that within the criteria of preventive conservation, the monitoring and control of environmental conditions are essential practices to minimize damage to the heritage during the exhibition.The pu...
Proceedings of Building Simulation 2019: 16th Conference of IBPSA, 2020
The indoor climate conditions being suitable for the conservation of cultural heritage can be conflicting with energy saving and thermal comfort. Moreover, the moisture dynamics have not been studied enough in the simulation of the indoor environment, even though its interaction with artworks is crucial in deterioration phenomena. This research aims at defining a strategy, based on experimental data and dynamic simulation of hygrothermal behaviour, in order to design a HVAC system able to simultaneously satisfy conservation, thermal comfort and energy requirements. A weighted function for the multi-objective optimization has been proposed and effectively used to pinpoint the combination of temperature and relative humidity set-points.
Energies, 2021
Several methods for appropriate control of the hygrothermal environment in museums to prevent the deterioration of cultural artifacts were presented in previous studies. However, few detailed hygrothermal simulation models have been used considering the hygrothermal performance of building components and airflow through gaps. Furthermore, hygrothermal properties of a type of storage facility with buffer spaces prevailing in Japan have not been quantitatively evaluated. The objectives of this study were to develop a detailed numerical model of a museum storage room with buffer spaces exhibiting high humidity during summer and to quantitatively evaluate the potential factors causing it; the inflow of humid outdoor air and indirect cooling caused by the air-conditioning system of a surrounding room. We analyzed the simulated temperature and humidity for various cases in which each influencing factor was suppressed. The humidity was reduced when the exhaust fan for the surrounding rooms...
Energy saving strategies in air-conditioning for museums
Applied Thermal Engineering, 2009
In the museum environment a strict thermal-hygrometric control is necessary primarily for the correct artwork conservation and then for the visitor thermal comfort. Considering that the air-conditioning system has to operate constantly, suitable techniques permit to obtain useful energy savings, allowing, however, a good dynamic microclimatic control. In this paper a case study is presented about various strategies used to reduce energy requirements for HVAC systems in an exhibition room of a modern museum. Using the dynamic simulation code DOE 2.2 and typical climatic hourly data sets, the annual energy use for an all-air system has been calculated, as well as the savings obtainable using different techniques, such as dehumidification by adsorption (desiccant wheel -saving equal to 15% with respect to a base configuration), total energy recovery from the relief air (passive desiccant -15%), outdoor airflow rate variation (demand control ventilation -45%). Moreover, the correspondence has been analyzed between the energy request and the admitted variation of indoor temperature and relative humidity: changing the admitted indoor RH range from 50 ± 2% to 50 ± 10%, energy savings around 40% have been obtained. As regards the thermal-hygrometric performance, an optimal control of temperature has been guaranteed with all the configurations, while the best performance in RH control has been obtained with the desiccant system. Considering a simple payback analysis, if the artworks preserved in a museum are particularly sensitive to indoor humidity variation, a desiccant system should be properly used; on the contrary, when the indoor humidity control is not strongly needed, the use of a HVAC system with demand control ventilation is advisable, because of the lowest payback value. The system with total energy recovery presents intermediate features.
IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering, 2018
In museums, artworks preservation is hampered by several factors, in particular temperature and relative humidity as inappropriate values of these parameters can cause biological, mechanical, and chemical degradation. Thus, HVAC systems must be able to maintain specific suitable indoor microclimate also in critical conditions, such as variation of external climate and huge presence of visitors. In this paper, we first present the results of a monitoring campaign conducted in some rooms of an Italian museum in the 2015-2016 winter exhibition. The current HVAC system was able to maintain the required microclimate. A dynamic model (using TRNSYS for the envelope modeling and an in-house developed tool for the HVAC system) has been validated through the measured data. The dynamic model allows performing additional simulations characterized by critical boundary conditions (e.g., low external temperature and/or high relative humidity, and high number of visitors). In current conditions, these conditions would have caused unacceptable microclimate in the exhibition rooms, meaning higher risks for artworks. Through a rational rearrangement of the current HVAC system (both generators and terminal units), the microclimate was found to be suitable also in critical situations. This outcome is particularly important in exhibition rooms with temporarily borrowed artworks, since climatic conditions are basically unpredictable for the season of exhibition and so a robust HVAC system is needed.
Adaptive temperature limits for air-conditioned museums in temperate climates
Building Research & Information, 2017
Indoor temperature (T) and relative humidity (RH) are important for collection preservation and thermal comfort in museums. In the 20th century, the notion evolved that T and RH need to be stringently controlled, often resulting in excessive energy consumption. However, recent studies have shown that controlled fluctuations are permissible, enabling improved energy efficiency. Consequently, the thermal comfort requirements are increasingly important to determine temperature limits, but knowledge is limited. Therefore, a thermal comfort survey study and indoor measurements were conducted at Hermitage Amsterdam museum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands for one year, including: (1) monitoring of existing conditions (T = 21°C, RH = 50%); and (2) an intervention in which T is controlled based on an adaptive comfort approach (T = 19.5-24°C, RH = 50%). The results show that the thermal comfort of the existing conditions is far from optimum; visitors feel too cool in summer and slightly too warm in winter. The adaptive temperature limits were developed to improve thermal comfort significantly without endangering the collection, thereby saving energy. Furthermore, facilitating visitors to adapt their clothing may contribute to enlarging the temperature bandwidth and improve (individual) thermal comfort.
The necessity to control the indoor microclimate conditions inside the Camera Picta requested to perform detailed investigations by means of permanent measurements of the air temperature, air humidity, and surfaces temperatures and computer simulations. The measurements have been implemented by IR thermography investigations and by local air velocity measurements. The collected data allows to carefully characterize the microclimate of the Camera Picta and a fully knowledge of the temperature profiles of the internal walls. The remarkable possibilities of modern computer simulations codes coupled with the mathematical modelisation allow to obtain useful information for conservation scopes: the method applicability is proposed here for designing the HVAC (Heating Ventilation Air Conditioning) plant system in a case in which peculiar attention to intrusive apparatus shall be paid. It is important to point out that the mathematical simulation must be put right with measurements and a co...
Applied Sciences
The current energy crisis and the necessity to minimize energy waste suggest the need to assess non-air-conditioned buildings in terms of the need to install an air-conditioning system and to size and control it efficiently. This applies to historical museum buildings hosting artworks that require specific microclimate conditions for their preservation. With this view, this work analyzes the suitability of non-air-conditioned historical museum buildings to properly preserve exhibits. Therefore, two non-air-conditioned museums located in the historical city center of Florence, Italy, are considered as case studies, i.e., Vasari Corridor and La Specola. One year of indoor microclimate data monitored in representative rooms of the museums are analyzed according to the standard for artworks preservation and in terms of historical climate. Results of monitored indoor air temperature and relative humidity show that all monitored rooms are not suitable for the preservation of the exhibits ...
IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering, 2018
The University of Florence has equipped one of the most representative Florentine historical Museum, "La Specola", of a specific microclimatic monitoring system installed in some rooms. The paper presents the results of one-year record of temperature and relative humidity, regarding a room and its showcases. The elaboration and analysis of the microclimatic data have been carried out according to the Italian Standard UNI 10829 and the Performance Index of the most important thermo-hygrometric parameters has been calculated and assessed. Moreover, a dynamic thermal simulation to assess the effectiveness of some passive refurbishment strategies has been carried out in terms of annual and monthly Performance Index and dry bulb temperature variations. The results can be extended to several historical buildings, where poor envelope performances and large windows or skylights imply not acceptable indoor environmental conditions that can even cause damage to the artefacts.