Analytical study of house wall and air temperature transients under on-off and proportional control for different wall type

Abstract

A mathematical model is formulated to study the effect of wall mass on the thermal performance of four different houses of different construction. This analytical study was motivated by the experimental work of Burch et al. An analytical solution of one -dimensional, linear, partial differential equation for wall temperature profiles and room air temperatures is obtained using the Laplace transform method. Typical Meteorological Year data are processed to yield hourly average monthly values. These discrete data are then converted to a continuous, time dependent form using a Fast Fourier Transform method. This study is conducted using weather data from four different locations in the United States: Albuquerque, New mexico; Miami, Florida; Santa Maria, California; and Washington D.C. for both winter and summer conditions. A computer code is developed to calculate the wall temperature profile, room air temperature, and energy consumption loads. Three sets of results are calculated one for no auxiliary energy and two for different control mechanism -- an on-off controller and a proportional controller. Comparisons are made for the cases of two controllers. Heavy weight houses with insulation in mild weather areas (such as August in Santa Maria, California) show a high comfort level. Houses using proportional control experience a higher comfort level in comparison to houses using on-off control. The result shows that there is an effect of mass on the thermal performance of a heavily constructed house in mild weather conditions.