Hygrothermal performance optimization on bamboo building envelope in Hot-Humid climate region

Bamboo forest distributes largely in Hot-Humid climate regions, where the local application of bamboo in building industry possesses multiple potentials such as high-value utilization of bamboo resources and improvement of building sustainability. To support the application of bamboo in building envelope, the paper carried out study on the bamboo construction design optimization in Hot-Humid climate region. For bamboo as a hygroscopic material, the coupled heat and moisture process model was adopted for the hygrothermal performance study of bamboo construction. With 4 groups of meteorological data from 2 representative cities in the Hot-Humid climate region of North America as external conditions, exterior walls were constructed in WUFI Plus and the coupled heat and moisture process simulation was performed. Based on the statistical analyses of a large sample of simulation results, scientific laws for promoting the parameter optimization were generated, for which the simulation results were grouped to the indicators on three level, including annual exterior walls hygrothermal performance, indoor hygrothermal environment and HVAC demand. Factor impact analyses were carried out to investigate the effect of the partition boards, thermal insulation infill and air layer arrangement. Hygrothermal performance design optimization suggestions were generated, in terms of material and construction parameters optimization, which would support the climate adaptive design of bamboo building envelope in Hot-Humid climate region.