A Study of the Use of Thermal Inertia in Simple Layer Walls and Its Application to the Use of a Vegetal Fiber Material in Buildings

摘要

In building design, thermal inertia is an important passive parameter that affects occupants' thermal comfort. The purpose of this paper is to use thermal inertia to investigate the use of an environmentally friendly material (hemp concrete) as a building envelope. Three studies on simple layer walls and on the whole building level are shown. While the first two studies allowed us to analyze the behaviour of a simple wall under periodical variating outdoor conditions and under indoor variating condition, the third study investigated the thermal behaviour of a building envelope under winter and summer real conditions. For the numerical approach, a simulation model was developed and implemented in the program oriented object SPARK. Simulations were used to compare the behaviour of a hemp concrete wall to other different materials. Our results suggest that this material, when accompanied with bioclimatic building design, is suited for both cold and hot weathers.