A comparison study of the blower door and novel pulse technique on measuring enclosure airtightness in a controlled environment

Zheng, Xiaofeng; Cooper, Edward; Mazzon, Joe; Wallis, Ian; Wood, Christopher J.

Abstract

This paper introduces a comparison study of measuring the airtightness of a house sized test chamber using the novel pulse technique and the standard blower door method in a controlled environment. Eight different testing plates have been applied to the improvised envelope of the chamber to establish different leakage characteristics. Each testing plate has a unique opening in the centre of the plate, achieved by obtaining a different combination of shape and thickness of the opening. By using the controlled environment, the vagaries of the natural condition when testing within buildings have been reduced providing a more robust testing environment. This investigation focuses on how the air leakage rate calculated from the measurements made by both techniques compare with each other. Comparable results (within 3 %) under most scenarios have been obtained. Additionally, other aspects such as usability of the equipment used for the pulse testing have also been appraised.

Citation

Zheng, X., Cooper, E., Mazzon, J., Wallis, I., & Wood, C. J. (2017). A comparison study of the blower door and novel pulse technique on measuring enclosure airtightness in a controlled environment.

• Conference Name: 38th AIVC - 6th TightVent & 4th venticool Conference, 2017 (AIVC 2017)
• Acceptance Date: Jun 18, 2017
• Publication Date: Sep 13, 2017
• Deposit Date: Nov 17, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 17, 2017
• Peer Reviewed: Not Peer Reviewed
• Keywords: Building airtightness, Blower door, PULSE unit, Controlled environment
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/882411
• Related Public URLs: http://www.aivc2017conference.org/
• Contract Date: Nov 17, 2017