Selection of material properties for the timber historic buildings in Tønsberg, Norway

The city of Tønsberg in Norway is one of the pilot areas examined in the framework of the HYPERION project. The Fadum storehouse (Fig. 1a) and the Heierstad loft (Fig. 1b) are historic timber buildings which have been modelled in detail within the project. The two buildings are made of either Scotch pine, (Pinus sylvestris), or Norway Spruce, (Picea abies). Their exact material properties are unknown. To define them we:

• selected material properties from existing databases,
• employed measurements of the hygrothermal performance of selected building components,
• employed simulations of the hygrothermal performance of selected building components,
• used statistical methods to define the set of properties according to which the measurements and the simulations have the best fit.