THERMAL SCIENCE

International Scientific Journal

THERMAL MASS IMPACT ON ENERGY PERFORMANCE OF A LOW, MEDIUM AND HEAVY MASS BUILDING IN BELGRADE

ABSTRACT
Heavy mass materials used in building structures and architecture can significantly affect building energy performance and occupant comfort. The purpose of this study was to investigate if thermal mass can improve the internal environment of a building, resulting in lower energy requirements from the mechanical systems. The study was focused on passive building energy performance and compared annual space heating and cooling energy requirements for an office building in Belgrade with several different applications of thermal mass. A three-dimensional building model was generated to represent a typical office building. Building shape, orientation, glazing to wall ratio, envelope insulation thickness, and indoor design conditions were held constant while location and thickness of building mass (concrete) was varied between cases in a series of energy simulations. The results were compared and discussed in terms of the building space heating and cooling energy and demand affected by thermal mass. The simulation results indicated that with addition of thermal mass to the building envelope and structure: 100% of all simulated cases experienced reduced annual space heating energy requirements, 67% of all simulated cases experienced reduced annual space cooling energy requirements, 83% of all simulated cases experienced reduced peak space heating demand and 50% of all simulated cases experienced reduced peak space cooling demand. The study demonstrated that there exists a potential for reducing space heating and cooling energy requirements with heavy mass construction in the analyzed climate region (Belgrade, Serbia).
KEYWORDS
PAPER SUBMITTED: 2012-04-09
PAPER REVISED: 2012-07-11
PAPER ACCEPTED: 2012-07-20
DOI REFERENCE: https://doi.org/10.2298/TSCI120409182A
CITATION EXPORT: view in browser or download as text file
THERMAL SCIENCE YEAR 2012, VOLUME 16, ISSUE Supplement 2, PAGES [S447 - S459]
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© 2024 Society of Thermal Engineers of Serbia. Published by the Vinča Institute of Nuclear Sciences, National Institute of the Republic of Serbia, Belgrade, Serbia. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International licence