Energy-efficient preservation environment control for enclosed exhibition hall of earthen relics

Historical earthen sites are bright stars in historical and cultural heritages. In order to effectively protect and display earthen sites (including cultural relics and soil), the fully-enclosed exhibition halls are established but without any environment control system. This will lead to some diseases of earthen sites, e.g., crystallization, structural cracking, which is due to continuous water/moisture loss of earthen sites. Hence, this work aims to control water and heat transfer between earthen site and ambient environment by proposing an energy-efficient environment control system, based on optimal design of ventilation and air conditioning. Numerical strategy was developed to calculate heat & moisture transfer between air and relics. Further this model was applied to optimize key design parameters (e.g. inlet air parameters) of environment control system through numerical simulations. Compared to fully-enclosed exhibition hall without control measures (moisture loss, −1.65 g/s), the moisture loss issue is solved by environment control system with optimal design (moisture gain, 0.013 g/s). The parameter design of control system is very essential, and different design parameters can lead to deviation of energy consumption up to 71%. This research is of great significance to mitigate the deterioration problems of enclosed exhibition hall of earthen relics, and the proposed numerical strategy can provide a useful tool for the control of other similar physical environments.