Abstract
The thermal performance of buildings in the south of China focuses on thermal mass design, while in the north it favors thermal insulation design, which makes it impossible to achieve a balance between the thermal mass and insulation. Here, a comprehensive evaluation index is developed to measure the thermal performance of a building’s external envelope, which aims to find out the optimal range of the wall thickness under the influence of the thermal mass and insulation, and to seek the correct balance between a building’s energy consumption and the thermal performance of walls. In this paper, four dimensions, namely the heat transfer coefficient, thermal inertia index, attenuation degree, and delay time, are discussed, and the weight coefficients of each subfactor are calculated and isotropically treated to create comprehensive evaluation indicators. Then the distribution laws of the composite index values of common building materials in different climatic zones are examined. The result shows that the correlation coefficient (R2) between M and building energy consumption is about 0.7736–0.8215, which is higher than 0.3494–0.384, the heat transfer coefficient, and is more accurate in predicting building energy demands. Furthermore, through the analysis of the thermal improvement rate and the building energy-saving rate, the suitable wall thickness of commonly used building materials in different climate zones is determined, and the application prospects of the research results are described. With the above research findings, the thickness ranges of walls can be determined at the initial period of building design by combining regional environmental factors and material characteristics to provide a reference for building energy-saving design.
Highlights
The rapid development of the social economy has significantly accelerated urbanization in China, resulting in considerable energy consumption and carbon emissions [1].According to the statistics, China’s building energy consumption has risen from 21% to33% of total energy consumption in the past decade [2,3], leading to negative impacts on the economy and environment
The purpose of this paper is to find a method combining the thermal mass and insulation to evaluate the performance of building materials and to discover the correlation between it and building energy demands
Five common building materials, namely reinforced concrete, aerated concrete, rammed earth, clay brick, and hollow clay brick were selected, and, based on the above comprehensive evaluation index, the design interval of a building structure’s thickness suitable for the typical cities of different thermal zones are given in combination with the room ambient design temperature
Summary
The rapid development of the social economy has significantly accelerated urbanization in China, resulting in considerable energy consumption and carbon emissions [1]. 33% of total energy consumption in the past decade [2,3], leading to negative impacts on the economy and environment. The concept of a building’s energy savings has become a primary concern for the built environment, and has a significant potential for energy conservation and emission reductions. Prompted by the policy of energy conservation and emissions reduction, various regions in China have launched building energy-saving design standards successively. Energy-saving design requirements have evolved from the 30% in 1986 to the 75%. Building energy efficiency standards [5,6] require the finite value of the heat transfer coefficient of the building envelope
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