Comparison and analyses of two thermal performance evaluation models for a public building

Abstract

Recently, investigations on building thermal inertia are mainly involved with the materials of the building envelope. Usually, other influencing factors are ignored, such as room ventilation, indoor heat storage, indoor cold source, indoor heat source and human behavior. In this paper, two models based on thermodynamics are given to evaluate building thermal performance. One is thermal mass model, and the other one is thermal reserve coefficient model. Based on thermal response testing data in a non-heating season, the thermal mass model was adopted to classify the envelope type, and the delay rules between the indoor temperature and the outdoor meteorological parameters are analyzed. In a heating season, the delay rules among the outdoor temperature, indoor temperature and supply water temperature are obtained by changing the supply water temperature. Thermal performance of the targeted building is evaluated with the thermal reserve coefficient model. For the same public building, two evaluation models tend to be consistent. These two evaluation models presented in this paper can be applied for the optimal design of buildings envelope.