Convergence criteria analysis for thermal conductance measurements of building walls: A case study

Abstract

The significance of on-site measurements for the thermal characterization of building components is widely recognized. Walls thermal performance can be identified through the widely used Heat-Flow Meter (HFM) method, which has been frequently applied in literature. However, only a few scientific works have examined the convergence criteria suggested by the ISO 9869–1. Starting from this, the aim of this work is evaluating the convergence criteria in a case study using the progressive average method. Thermal conductance (C-value) measurements were carried out in a small-scale building, placed in the external area of a building school site near Rome (Italy). The building is internally equipped with an electric heating system. Heat-flux sensor and surface temperature probes were applied to assess the C-value of the envelope. The different switching-on of the heater characterized by different power levels and the reaching of regular thermal conditions after initial transients were considered to evaluate the acquired data and their influence on the results. The known walls stratigraphy allowed to compute and compare theoretical and experimental C-values. Based on the examined data, it is possible to assert that the convergence conditions are very strict, mainly due to the third criterion.