The Passive Display Case

Display cases around the world contain some of the most precious objects of our cultural heritage, from Leonardo Da Vinci’s La Gioconda to the Gutenberg Bible. We trust that these display cases will protect our objects of cultural heritage from vandalism, light, pollution and most importantly, moisture. Nevertheless, museums sometimes find that although their objects of art are in display cases, these are not providing the ideal protective microclimate. Hygroscopic materials can help restore this protective microclimate, but there are situations where the use of moisture-buffering materials is ineffective. This project aims to find when these situations occur. In order to do this, a computational and experimental model were developed, and the results are evaluated in this report.Building Engineering/Building Technology & PhysicsStructural EngineeringCivil Engineering and Geoscience