Thermal performance evaluation of a massive brick wall under real weather conditions via the Conduction Transfer function method

The reliable estimation of buildings energy needs for cooling and heating is essential for any eventual thermal improvement of the envelope or the HVAC equipment. This paper presents an interesting method to evaluate the thermal performance of a massive wall by using the frequency-domain regression (FDR) method to calculate CTF coefficients by means of the Fourier transform. The method is based on the EN ISO 13786 (2007) procedure by using the Taylor expansion for the elements of the heat matrix. Numerical results were validated through an experimental heating box with stochastic boundary conditions on one side of the wall representing real weather conditions and constant temperature profile on the other side representing the inside ambiance in real cases. Finally, a frequency analysis was performed in order to assess the validity and accuracy of the method used. The results show that development to the second order is sufficient to predict the thermal behavior of the studied massive wall in the range of frequencies encountered in the building applications (one hour time step). This method is useful for thermal transfer analysis in real weather conditions where the outside temperature is stochastic; it also allows the evaluation of the thermal performance of a wall through a frequency analysis.