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Water dissipation mechanism of residential and office buildings in urban areas

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Abstract

Indoor humidity directly impacts the health of indoor populations. In arid and semi-arid cities, the buildings indoor humidity is typically higher than outdoors, and the presence of water vapor results from water dissipation inside the buildings. Few studies have explored indoor humidity features and vapor distribution or evaluated water dissipation inside buildings. This study examined temperature and relative humidity (RH) changes in typical residential and office buildings. The results indicate a relatively stable temperature with vary range of ±1°C and a fluctuation RH trend which is similarly to that of water use. We proposed the concept of building water dissipation to describe the transformation of liquid water into gaseous water during water consumption and to develop a building water dissipation model that involves two main parameters: indoor population and total floor area. The simulated values were verified by measuring water consumption and water drainage, and the resulting simulation errors were lower for residential than for office buildings. The results indicate that bathroom vapor accounts for 70% of water dissipation in residential buildings. We conclude that indoor humidity was largely a result of water dissipation indoors, and building water dissipation should be considered in urban hydrological cycles.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Hydraulic Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    JinJun Zhou & ZhongJing Wang

  2. State Key Laboratory of Simulation and Regulation of Water Cycle in River Basin, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, Beijing, 100038, China

    JinJun Zhou, JiaHong Liu, Hao Wang & Chao Mei

  3. School of Transportation and Civil Engineering & Architecture, Foshan University, Guangdong, 528000, China

    JiaHong Liu & Hao Wang

  4. Engineering and Technology Research Center for Water Resources and Hydroecology of the Ministry of Water Resources, Beijing, 100038, China

    JiaHong Liu & Hao Wang

Authors
  1. JinJun Zhou
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  2. JiaHong Liu
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  3. Hao Wang
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  4. ZhongJing Wang
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  5. Chao Mei
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Correspondence to JiaHong Liu.

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Zhou, J., Liu, J., Wang, H. et al. Water dissipation mechanism of residential and office buildings in urban areas. Sci. China Technol. Sci. 61, 1072–1080 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11431-017-9193-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11431-017-9193-8

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