Use of concrete thermal inertia for buildings energy savings

Abstract

Global warming problems require to study different alternatives to stop it, and power generation and consume play a very important role in this regard, mainly in countries like Argentina, where power is mostly generated from fossil fuels. The amount of energy consumed by buildings is directly linked to their energy efficiency, and to size its thermal system, calculation tools based on thermal transmittance and stationary heat flow are used. This methodology has the virtue of simplicity, but it does not take into account the heat storage capacity or its flow, that is, it does not consider the thermal inertia present in materials such as concrete or masonry. This property, together with an adequate bioclimatic design, allows to reduce energy requirements and achieving more comfortable environments. In this work, through simplified mathematical models, concrete walls with different densities and thicknesses were simulated, and their thermal capacity and admittance were calculated. These parameters easily quantify the beneficial effects of thermal inertia: the time delay of outdoor and indoor temperature peaks, and the damping of thermal amplitude inside the building.