- Author
- Burch, D. M. | Walton, G. N. | Cavanaugh, K. | Licitra, B. A.
- Title
- Effect of Interior Mass Surfaces on the Space Heating and Cooling Loads of a Single-Family Residence.
- Coporate
- National Bureau of Standards, Gaithersburg, MD
- Sponsor
- Department of Energy, Washington, DC Electric Power Research Institute, Palo Alto, CA
- Report
- NBSIR 86-3377, May 1986, 35 p.
- Distribution
- Available from National Technical Information Service
- Keywords
- whole building performance | interior mass surfaces | thermal mass | computer-predicted building performance | steady-state theory
- Abstract
- A Computer Program called TARP is used to analyze the effect of interior mass surfaces (i.e., partition walls and interior furnishings) on the weekly space heating and cooling loads of an insulated and a poorly insulated residence. In space heating applications, when the outdoor temperature deviated from the balance point, the inclusion of interior mass surfaces in the modeling of the houses increased the interior radiant temperature. This, in turn, increased the overall envelope heat-transfer coefficients of the houses. This effect was found to be more significant in the poorly insulated house compared to the insulated house. When the outdoor temperature was near the balance point, the thermal storage provided by interior surfaces caused the internal heat gains to be more effectively utilized, and weekly space heating loads tended to approach a "high mass limit" that coincided with steady-state theory. Under this condition, additional mass has only a small effect on space heating loads. In space cooling applications, the inclusion of interior surfaces increased the "effective envelop heat-transfer coefficient" in a linear regime away from the balance point, but produced little change in space cooling loads in a nonlinear regime near the balance point. Thermal insulation in the building envelope was found to have a small effect in reducing annual space cooling loads. The results of this study indicated that errors can occur when interior mass surfaces are excluded from dynamic computer simulations of residences.