Condensation investigation at the National Gallery of Australia off-site facility

Condensation is an issue that has been affection the Australian National Gallery of Art off-site facility - Hume storage warehouse - for more than 20 years. A condensation investigation aims to detect the causes and provide recommendations to solve this problem, considering aspects and properties such as heating and cooling conditions, temperature moisture content, ventilation and structural construction. It has been found that air infiltartion and thermal bridging are characteristics that have a great impact in the the generation of surface condensation within the facilities. An engineering approach to the conditions and remedies related to the specific sites of condensation are analysed and thermal modelled using Ansys and heat3 software. This thesis investigates the stability of the conditioned space in order to preserve the contents and collections which possess a high social and economic value for Australian art.