The Test Facility
The Coquitlam Field
Exposure Test Facility is a 900 square
foot building located on the rooftop of
the two story commercial office building
occupied by team member and builder,
Gauvin 2000 Construction Ltd. The
rooftop location was chosen because of
the increased security offered by the
controlled access through the building
and for the unobstructed exposure to the
elements in all directions. The test
facility is designed to accommodate
seven wall test panels on each cardinal
direction (a total of 28 wall test
panels) and three roof test panels on
each of the north and south roof slopes
(a total of 6 roof test panels).
Balanced Solutions Inc. (BSI)
monitoring and control system measures
and records performance, controls
interior temperature and humidity
conditions, and is connected to the
internet for remote monitoring and
control.
A steel mast on the
roof of the test facility supports a
weather station at height of 22 ft above
the roof of the office building and 50
ft above ground level. The
BSI monitoring system
continuously collects weather data
including:
- Outdoor temperature and relative humidity
- Solar radiation on the horizontal
- Solar radiation on each wall orientation
- Wind speed and direction
- Rainfall
- Driving rain on two faces
The BSI monitoring system also
measures the indoor temperature and
humidity and an instrumentation package
in each test panel. The instrumentation
package varies from panel to panel
depending on construction and includes
16 to 20 sensors to monitor moisture
content, temperature, and relative
humidity at multiple locations in the
test panel assembly. The sensors are
measured every 5 minutes and the average
saved to memory every hour. Further
details can be found in the description
of the
experimental setup. |
