Tags: #architecture #buildingdesign #buildingmaterials #buildingscience #materialsscience
Extreme surface temperatures on exposed enclosures: validation of AAMA’s 711/714 elevated temperature exposures.
There are various tools for predicting surface temperatures as a function of building orientation. This week, I’ve decided to simulate these conditions for locations of interest. I wanted to know what really happens on the surface of walls and within the greater assembly. I am especially interested in those extended periods when the building is left uncladded.
I became reacquainted with the fact that building surfaces get hot, very hot – certainly hotter than 122°F (50°C) with regularity and more certainly when uncladded (but sometimes even when cladded). Though extreme, these elevated temperatures are episodic, exclusively diurnal, and generally returning to a more comfortable 100°F within a discrete 8-hour duration. Building materials behave very differently at 100°F than they do at 176°F, the upper limit of AAMA’s Class 3 temperature testing. And, per usual, products are tested on anodized aluminum. Yet they behave very differently when applied to dissimilar materials. Their behaviors get even more erratic when cycled at such extremes for the duration of the build, let alone the life of the building.