IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jeners/v13y2020i6p1356-d332610.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Impacts of a Building’s Thermal Mass on the Cooling Load of a Radiant System under Various Typical Climates

Author

Listed:
  • Rong Hu

    (School of Architecture and Traffic Engineering, Guilin University of Electronic Technology, Guangxi 541004, China)

  • Gang Liu

    (School of Energy Science and Engineering, Central South University, Changsha 410083, China)

  • Jianlei Niu

    (Department of Building Services Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong 999077, China)

Abstract

Cooling load is difficult to predict for a radiant system, because the interaction between a building’s thermal mass and radiation heat gain has not been well defined in a zone with a cooling surface. This study aims to reveal the effect of thermal mass in an external wall on the transmission load in a space with an active cooling surface. We investigated the thermal performances in a typical office building under various weather conditions by dynamic simulation with Energy-Plus. It was found that the thermal mass in the inside concrete layer had positives in terms of indoor temperature performance and energy conservation. The peak cooling load of the hydronic system decreases 28% in the proper operating state, taking into account the effect of the thermal mass in an external wall. Compared to the performances in zones with equivalent convective air systems (CASs), the peak cooling load and the accumulated load of the combined system (radiant system coupled by fresh air system) are higher by 9%–11% and 3%–4%, respectively. The effect of thermal mass is evident in a transient season with mild weather, when the relative effects are about 45% and 60%, respectively, for a building with radiant systems and a building with equivalent CASs.

Suggested Citation

  • Rong Hu & Gang Liu & Jianlei Niu, 2020. "The Impacts of a Building’s Thermal Mass on the Cooling Load of a Radiant System under Various Typical Climates," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-20, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:13:y:2020:i:6:p:1356-:d:332610
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/6/1356/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/6/1356/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Reilly, Aidan & Kinnane, Oliver, 2017. "The impact of thermal mass on building energy consumption," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 198(C), pages 108-121.
    2. A.M. Fogheri, 2015. "Energy Efficiency in Public Buildings," Rivista economica del Mezzogiorno, Società editrice il Mulino, issue 3-4, pages 763-784.
    3. Verbeke, Stijn & Audenaert, Amaryllis, 2018. "Thermal inertia in buildings: A review of impacts across climate and building use," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 82(P3), pages 2300-2318.
    4. Fadzli Haniff, Mohamad & Selamat, Hazlina & Yusof, Rubiyah & Buyamin, Salinda & Sham Ismail, Fatimah, 2013. "Review of HVAC scheduling techniques for buildings towards energy-efficient and cost-effective operations," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 94-103.
    5. Kyoung-Ho Lee & Moon-Chang Joo & Nam-Choon Baek, 2015. "Experimental Evaluation of Simple Thermal Storage Control Strategies in Low-Energy Solar Houses to Reduce Electricity Consumption during Grid On-Peak Periods," Energies, MDPI, vol. 8(9), pages 1-21, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Leccese, Francesco & Salvadori, Giacomo & Asdrubali, Francesco & Gori, Paola, 2018. "Passive thermal behaviour of buildings: Performance of external multi-layered walls and influence of internal walls," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 225(C), pages 1078-1089.
    2. Wang, Y. & Mauree, D. & Sun, Q. & Lin, H. & Scartezzini, J.L. & Wennersten, R., 2020. "A review of approaches to low-carbon transition of high-rise residential buildings in China," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    3. Shan, Kui & Wang, Jiayuan & Hu, Maomao & Gao, Dian-ce, 2019. "A model-based control strategy to recover cooling energy from thermal mass in commercial buildings," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 958-967.
    4. Oliveira Panão, Marta J.N. & Mateus, Nuno M. & Carrilho da Graça, G., 2019. "Measured and modeled performance of internal mass as a thermal energy battery for energy flexible residential buildings," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 239(C), pages 252-267.
    5. Staszczuk, A. & Kuczyński, T., 2019. "The impact of floor thermal capacity on air temperature and energy consumption in buildings in temperate climate," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 181(C), pages 908-915.
    6. Gábor L. Szabó & Ferenc Kalmár, 2018. "Parametric Analysis of Buildings’ Heat Load Depending on Glazing—Hungarian Case Study," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(12), pages 1-16, November.
    7. Nusrat Jannat & Aseel Hussien & Badr Abdullah & Alison Cotgrave, 2020. "A Comparative Simulation Study of the Thermal Performances of the Building Envelope Wall Materials in the Tropics," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(12), pages 1-26, June.
    8. Wu, Wentao & Zhang, Wei & Benner, Jingru & Malkawi, Ali, 2020. "Critical evaluation of analytical methods for thermally activated building systems," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    9. Moeller, Simon & Bauer, Amelie, 2022. "Energy (in)efficient comfort practices: How building retrofits influence energy behaviours in multi-apartment buildings," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    10. Kuczyński, T. & Staszczuk, A., 2020. "Experimental study of the influence of thermal mass on thermal comfort and cooling energy demand in residential buildings," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 195(C).
    11. Julia Lima Toroxel & Sandra Monteiro Silva, 2024. "A Review of Passive Solar Heating and Cooling Technologies Based on Bioclimatic and Vernacular Architecture," Energies, MDPI, vol. 17(5), pages 1-28, February.
    12. Yu Dong & Tongyu Qin & Siyuan Zhou & Lu Huang & Rui Bo & Haibo Guo & Xunzhi Yin, 2020. "Comparative Whole Building Life Cycle Assessment of Energy Saving and Carbon Reduction Performance of Reinforced Concrete and Timber Stadiums—A Case Study in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-24, February.
    13. Leurent, Martin & Jasserand, Frédéric & Locatelli, Giorgio & Palm, Jenny & Rämä, Miika & Trianni, Andrea, 2017. "Driving forces and obstacles to nuclear cogeneration in Europe: Lessons learnt from Finland," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 138-150.
    14. Yu, Jinghua & Ye, Hong & Xu, Xinhua & Huang, Junchao & Liu, Yunxi & Wang, Jinbo, 2018. "Experimental study on the thermal performance of a hollow block ventilation wall," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 619-631.
    15. Mohammad S. M. Almulhim & Dexter V. L. Hunt & Chris D. F. Rogers, 2020. "A Resilience and Environmentally Sustainable Assessment Framework (RESAF) for Domestic Building Materials in Saudi Arabia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(8), pages 1-24, April.
    16. He, Ke-Lun & Chen, Qun & Ma, Huan & Zhao, Tian & Hao, Jun-Hong, 2020. "An isomorphic multi-energy flow modeling for integrated power and thermal system considering nonlinear heat transfer constraint," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 211(C).
    17. Tong, Zheming & Chen, Yujiao & Malkawi, Ali & Liu, Zhu & Freeman, Richard B., 2016. "Energy saving potential of natural ventilation in China: The impact of ambient air pollution," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 660-668.
    18. Leila Luttenberger Marić & Hrvoje Keko & Marko Delimar, 2022. "The Role of Local Aggregator in Delivering Energy Savings to Household Consumers," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(8), pages 1-27, April.
    19. Rodrigues, Eugénio & Fernandes, Marco S. & Gaspar, Adélio Rodrigues & Gomes, Álvaro & Costa, José J., 2019. "Thermal transmittance effect on energy consumption of Mediterranean buildings with different thermal mass," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 252(C), pages 1-1.
    20. Reynolds, Jonathan & Rezgui, Yacine & Kwan, Alan & Piriou, Solène, 2018. "A zone-level, building energy optimisation combining an artificial neural network, a genetic algorithm, and model predictive control," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 729-739.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:13:y:2020:i:6:p:1356-:d:332610. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.