Thermal Mass Concrete Walls

A wall material with high thermal mass can moderate daily temperature variations.

Thermal mass concrete walls.

Concrete slab floors should be 100 200mm thick for the best performance while thermal mass walls should be 100 150mm thick. Thermal mass is ideally placed within a building where it is shielded from direct solar gain but exposed to the building occupants. Thermal mass is a concept in building design that describes how the mass of the building provides inertia against internal temperature fluctuations. The exact amount should be calculated as part of the design process.

Wooden walls by comparison are much easier to heat with their lower thermal mass. Thermal mass for limiting summertime overheating. With integral insulation some of the thermal mass masonry is directly in contact with the indoor air which provides excellent thermal mass benefits while allowing exposed masonry on both the exterior and interior. This is typically achieved through its ability to absorb unwanted heat during the day and then release it at night with the help of ventilation from cool night air.

We manufacture and distribute a full line of concrete insulation systems for use in plant precast site cast tilt up and cast in place projects. Precast panels are manufactured at a plant and delivered to the job site. Internal or enclosed water features such as pools can also provide thermal mass but require good ventilation and must be capable of being isolated as. Multi wythe cavity walls contain insulation between two wythes of masonry.

Thermal mass walls come in two forms. It is therefore most commonly associated with solid concrete floor slabs in naturally ventilated or low energy mechanically ventilated buildings where the concrete soffit is left exposed to the occupied space. A lot of heat energy is required to change the temperature of high density materials like precast concrete and this is why concrete has high thermal mass. Very thick thermal mass walls and floors may take too long to heat while those that are too thin won t store enough heat.

Thermal mass walls take advantage of the thermal mass effect which occurs when concrete walls and floors absorb daytime heat and release it at night. Introduce thermal mass within lightweight structures by using isolated masonry walls water filled containers phase change materials pcms or lightweight steel framed concrete floors.