Concrete Walls Thermal Performance Analysis by Brazilian Standards

Concrete walls have been largely use for the construction of Brazilian social housing even if presenting bad results on thermal performance. Studies indicate the necessity of system changes to improve its performance. In this paper, the thermal performance of concrete walls was analyzed according to prescriptive and simulation methods presented in Brazilian standards for climate differences. A typical four story-housing model was tested in its original design and with building systems improvements. This study aims to explicitly the differences in results between the standard's prescriptive and simulation methods and also addresses the efficacy of system changes to improve the building envelope thermal performance for each Brazilian Bioclimatic Zone (BZ).