Energy and Buildings 34 (2002) 321331

Influence of insulation configuration on heating and

cooling loads in a continuously used building
Elisabeth Kosseckaa, Jan Kosnyb,*
a
Polish Academy of Sciences, Ecological Building Group, Swietokrzyska 21, 00 049 Warsaw, Poland
b
Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Bldg. 3147, MS 6070, Oak Ridge, TN 37831-6070, USA
Received 19 May 2001; accepted 28 August 2001

Abstract

This paper is focused on the energy performance of buildings containing massive exterior building envelope components. The effect of
mass and insulation location on heating and cooling loads is analyzed for six characteristic wall configurations. Correlations between
structural and dynamic thermal characteristics of walls are discussed. A simple one-room model of a building exposed to periodic
temperature changes is analyzed to illustrate the effect of material configuration on the ability of a wall to dampen interior temperature
swings. Whole-building dynamic modeling using DOE-2.1E is employed for the energy analysis of a one-story residential building with
various exterior wall configurations for six different US climates. The best thermal performance is obtained when massive material layers
are located at the inner side and directly exposed to the interior space. # 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Building heat transfer; Structure factors; Frequency response; Thermal stability; Dynamic thermal performance

1. Introduction properties of walls themselves and their dependence on

Because of the increasing amount of new residential and
commercial construction using massive exterior building
envelope technologies, it is very important to optimize
the mass and insulation distribution in walls. In comparing
several massive walls with the same R-value, it can be
observed that some wall configurations are more thermally
effective than others [1]. This superior thermal performance
can be detected only for a specific distribution of mass and
insulation inside the wall.
Several authors have studied the effect of various design
characteristics of massive exterior walls, with some amount
of insulation, on heating and cooling loads in commercial
and residential buildings [24]. For multi-layer walls, three
basic material configurations were considered: insulation
either inside or outside the massive layer, and insulation
located between two massive layers. The results of extensive
parametric analysis have shown explicitly that walls with
the insulation outside always performed better than those
with the insulation inside. The conclusions of the present
studyfor the same type of residential building considered
by Byrne and co-workers [2]are generally the same;
however, more attention is paid to the dynamic thermal
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: 1-423-574-9353; fax: 1-423-574-9338.
E-mail address: kosnyj@ornl.gov (J. Kosny).
structural characteristics.
The annual energy demand of a building for heating and
cooling is affected to some extent by the thermal stability of
the building itself. Building thermal stability is understood
as the ability to hold the internal temperature within a certain
interval, given normal external temperature oscillations and
either with a constant energy supply from the plant or
without any plant action. This building thermal stability
depends on the dynamic thermal responses of all building
envelope components (exterior walls, internal partitions,
ceilings, and floors) to external and internal temperature
variations. Dynamic responses are determined by the ther-
mal properties of materials, the total amounts of materials
used, and their specific arrangement within structures.
The important feature of the ambient temperature course
is its diurnal character. It can be relatively well approxi-
mated by a harmonic function. Analysis of a simple one-
room model of a building exposed to periodic temperature
oscillations, for which an analytic solution is available, gives
some insight into the complicated stability problems of real
buildings. Such a simple model is examined in this paper.
The so-called thermal structure factors are used in select-
ing and analyzing multi-layer walls with essentially differ-
ent dynamic thermal properties. Six characteristic exterior
wall configurations are considered for this study. Wallsof
the same R-value and capacityare composed of the same

0378-7788/02/$ see front matter # 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 3 7 8 - 7 7 8 8 ( 0 1 ) 0 0 1 2 1 - 9
322 E. Kossecka, J. Kosny / Energy and Buildings 34 (2002) 321331

Nomenclature the effect of structure on the dynamic thermal behavior of

walls, follow from the integral formulae for the heat flow
ATi ; ATe interior and exterior temperature ampli- across the surfaces of a wall in a finite time interval [6]. They
tude include quantities called thermal structure factors. Relation-
B(io), D(io) elements of the transmission matrix ships between the structure factors, response factors, and z-
1/B, D/B transmittance and admittance response transfer function coefficients have been derived and ana-
cp specific heat lyzed by Kossecka [7,8] and Kossecka and Kosny [9].
C, Cm thermal capacity Thermal structure factors appear in expressions for the
DF decrement factor asymptotic heat flow across the surfaces of a wall, for
k thermal conductivity boundary conditions independent of time. Consider heat
L thickness transfer in an exterior building wall of thickness L separating
qi, qe heat flux across the internal and external the room, at temperature Ti, from the external environment,
surface of a wall at temperature Te. Thermophysical properties of the wall
Qi, Qe heat flow across the internal and external thermal conductivity k, specific heat cp, and density r are
surface of a wall constant in time, as are surface film resistances Ri and Re.
Ri, Re surface film resistance Let y be a dimensionless temperature for the steady-state
RT, Rm total resistance, resistance of layer m heat transfer through a wall, with boundary conditions
Ri%x , Rx%e resistance from the interior and exterior T i 0 and T e 1. For a plane wall, for which one-dimen-
air to the point x sional heat conduction conditions are satisfied, the function
Ri%m , Rm%e resistance from the interior and exterior y(x) is given by
air to the surface of the layer m Ri%x Rx%e
t time yx ; 1 % yx ; (1)
RT RT
Ti, Te interior and exterior air temperature
X n , Yn , Z n response factors with index n where Ri%x and Rx%e denote the resistance to heat transmis-
sion from point x in a wall to the internal and external
Greek letters environment, respectively, and RT is the total resistance for
d time decrement heat transmission through a wall. Ri%x and Rx%e can be
jii, jie, jee structure factors expressed by the following integrals:
r density Z x Z L
dx0 dx0
t Ti time shift Ri%x Ri ; R x%e Re : (2)
0 0
o angular frequency 0 kx x kx

Consider now the transient heat transfer process with ambi-

ent temperatures held constant for t > 0 at Ti2 and Te2 and
amount of heavyweight concrete and insulating foam and initial temperature in a wall representing the steady-state of
finished with gypsum board and stucco. They differ only in heat flow for ambient temperatures Ti1 and Te1. For suffi-
the arrangement of concrete and insulation layers. Walls ciently large t, the asymptotic expressions for the total heat
with insulation layers on both sides of the concrete core are flow in the time interval (0, t) across the internal and external
also included. A material configuration of this kind can be surfaces of a wall in the direction from the room to the
found in walls of insulating concrete forms systems, which environment, Qi(t) and Qe(t) have the following simple form
generate very specific dynamic thermal properties. [68,10]:
Whole-building dynamic DOE-2.1E modeling [5] was
t
employed for energy analysis of the one-story residential Qi t Ti2 % Te2 ' Cjii DTi Cjie DTe : (3)
building. The simulation was performed for six US climatic RT
zones. Three types of whole building performance data were t
Qe t Ti2 % Te2 ' % Cjie DTi % Cjee DTe : (4)
compared for each type of wall: annual heating loads, annual RT
cooling loads, and total annual energy demand.
DTi Ti2 % Ti1 ; DTe Te2 % Te1 : (5)
where C is the total thermal capacity of a wall element of the
2. Effect of material configuration on dynamic thermal units cross-sectional area:
characteristics of plane walls Z L
C rcp dx; (6)
2.1. Structure factors for multi-layer walls 0

whereas jii, jie, and jee are given by

The thermal structure of a wall is understood as the
1 L 1 L R2
Z Z
distribution of thermal resistance and capacity in its volume. jii rcp 1 % y2 dx rcp x%e dx: (7)
Formal relationships, which describe in a quantitative way C 0 C 0 R2T
 E. Kossecka, J. Kosny / Energy and Buildings 34 (2002) 321331 323

L L
1 1 Ri%x Rx%e
Z Z
jie rcp y1 % y dx rcp dx: (8)
C 0 C 0 R2T
L L
1 1 R2i%x
Z Z
jee rcp y2 dx rcp dx: (9)
C 0 C 0 R2T
Dimensionless quantities jii, jie, and jee are called the
thermal structure factors. For plane walls, they are deter-
mined directly by the thermal capacity and resistance dis-
tribution along thickness. In transitions between two
different states of steady heat flow, they represent fractions
of the total variation of heat stored in the wall volume that
are transferred across each of its surfaces as a result of
ambient temperature variations. Together with the total
thermal resistance RT and total heat capacity C, they con- Fig. 1. Walls of differing structures composed of concrete and insulation.
stitute basic thermal characteristics of walls; this is also true
in the case of three-dimensional heat transfer [9,11].
capacity but of different material configurations were exam-
The following identity is a consequence of Eqs. (7)(9):
ined. Walls 16 are depicted in Fig. 1. The main part of each
jii 2jie jee 1: (10) wall is a composition of heavyweight concrete layers of total
thickness 0.152 m (6 in.) and insulation layers of total
Structure factors for a wall composed of n plane homo-
thickness 0.102 m (4 in.). The interior layer is 0.013 m
geneous layers, numbered from 1 to n with layer 1 at the
(0.5 in.) thick gypsum plaster; the exterior layer is
interior surface, are given as follows:
0.019 m (0.75 in.) thick stucco. The total wall thickness is
1 X n ! 2
R
" 0.286 m (11.25 in.). Results for the wall with a homoge-
jii 2 Cm m Rm Rm%e R2m%e ; (11) neous core of the same total thermal resistance and capacity
RT C m1 3
are added for comparison.
n Thermophysical properties of the wall materials are as
R2m Rm RT
! "
1 X
jie 2 Cm % Ri%m Rm%e ; (12) follows:
RT C m1 3 2
n ! 2 " ) heavyweight concrete: k 1:44 W/m K, r 2240 kg/m3,
1 X Rm 2 cp 0:838 kJ/kg K;
jee 2 Cm Rm Ri%m Ri%m ; (13)
RT C m1 3 ) insulation: k 0:036 W/m K, r 16 kg/m3, cp 1:215
kJ/kg K;
where Rm and Cm denote the thermal resistance and capacity,
) gypsum board: k 0:16 W/m K, r 800 kg/m3, cp
respectively, of the mth layer; whereas Ri%m and Rm%e denote
1:089 kJ/kg K;
the resistance to heat transfer from surfaces of the mth layer
) stucco: k 0:72 W/m K, r 1856 kg/m3, cp 0:838
to inner and outer surroundings, respectively.
kJ/kg K.
Structure factor jii is comparatively large when most of
the total thermal capacity is located near the interior surface With surface film resistances of Ri 0:12 m2 K/W and
x 0 and most of the resistance is located in the outer part of Re 0:05 m2 K/W, the total thermal resistance for each wall
a wall, near the surface x L. The opposite holds for jee. RT 3:21 m2 K/W; the overall heat transfer coefficient
The following relations are straightforward: 0 < jii < 1, U 0:312 W/m2 K; and the wall thermal capacity
0 < jee < 1. C 329:93 kJ/m2 K.
Structure factor jie is comparatively large if most of the Structure factors jii, jie, and jee for walls 16 are
thermal capacity is located in the center of a wall and collected in Table 1. Factor jii attains its maximum in wall
resistance is symmetrically distributed on both sides of it. 3 (all concrete inside) and its minimum in wall 4 (all
The following limitations on jie result from Eq. (12): for a insulation inside); jie attains its maximum in wall 6 (sym-
two-layer wall, 0 < jie < 3/16; for an n-layer wall, with metric insulation) and its minimum in wall 4.
n ( 3, 0 < jie < 1/4. For a homogeneous wall with negli- Notice that from the asymptotic formula in Eq. (3) for the
gibly small film resistances Ri and Re, jii jee 1/3, heat flow Qi(t) across the interior surface of a wall, it follows
jie 1/6. that at a constant exterior temperature (DT e 0), storage
The products Cjii, Cjee, and Cjie for a multi-layer wall are effects are proportional to Cjii. A low value of jii for exterior
identified as the thermal mass factors, introduced by the walls, thus, reduces heating or cooling loads, necessary for
International Organization for Standardization standard [12]. a separate (individual) change of the indoor temperature.
Structure factors for multi-layer walls depend on the This means that for some intermittently used buildings,
arrangement of subsequent layers. To demonstrate this contrary to the case for continuously used buildings, a
effect, six examples of walls of the same resistance and configuration with insulation inside may be advisable.
324 E. Kossecka, J. Kosny / Energy and Buildings 34 (2002) 321331

Table 1 1
X
Structure factors for walls with cores composed of heavyweight concrete d nZn %Cjee : (16)
and insulation (shown in Fig. 1) n1

Wall no. Layer thickness (in.)a jii jie jee Analogous conditions are to be satisfied by the response
Gypsumheavyweight concreteinsulationheavyweight concretestucco factors for wall elements of complex structure in which
1 0.53430.75 0.408 0.048 0.496 three-dimensional heat flow occurs [9]. Eqs. (14)(16) refer
2 0.54420.75 0.530 0.053 0.363 to the response factors with number n ( 1, which represent
3 0.56400.75 0.770 0.068 0.094 the storage effects in the form of surface heat fluxes after the
Gypsuminsulationheavyweight concreteinsulationstucco duration of the temperature pulse. They indicate that for a
4 0.54600.75 0.034 0.040 0.885 given total thermal capacity C, the sum of the products of the
5 0.51630.75 0.460 0.187 0.167 response factors multiplied by their indices increases with
6 0.52620.75 0.234 0.222 0.322
the appropriate structure factor. This means that the role of
Homogeneous core 0.5100.75 0.294 0.162 0.382 response factors with large indices increases with the value
a
1 in: 25:4 mm. of the appropriate structure factor.
Dimensionless response factors, products of RT * Yn, for
2.2. Relationships between structure factors and response walls 16 are represented in Fig. 2. The influence of the
factors structure factor jie on the character of the variability of Yn
with n is clearly visible.
The quantities Cjii, Cjie, and Cjee, which in Eqs. (3) and
(4) determine the role of storage effects in transitions 2.3. Effect of material configuration on frequency response
between different states of steady heat flow, affect particular of a wall
modes of the dynamic heat flux response of a wall. They
appear in the constraint conditions on dynamic thermal Like the response factors, responses of walls to periodic
characteristics of walls such as the response factors, z- temperature excitations are affected by their structural char-
transfer function coefficients, and residues and poles of acteristics. This dependence, however, is not represented by
the Laplace transfer functions [79]. constraint equations but appears in the form of significant
Let Xn, Yn, and Zn be the response factors for a wall, corres- correlations between the frequency-dependent characteris-
ponding to different heat flux response modes. A response tics of walls and structure factors.
factor with index n represents the heat flux due to the unit, tri- The solution of a one-dimensional heat transfer problem
angular temperature pulse of base width 2d, at the time instant in a multi-layer slab at periodic temperature conditions is
nd [13,14]. Relationships between response factors Xn, Yn, Zn presented in several textbooks [14,15]. The periodic heat
and structure factors jii, jie, jee have the following form: flux qi across the inside surface of a wall is given by
X1
d nXn %Cjii : (14) Dio 1
qi t Ti t % Te t; (17)
n1 Bio Bio
1
X where D(io) and B(io) are elements of the transmission
d nYn Cjie : (15)
n1
matrix.

Fig. 2. Dimensionless response factors RT * Yn for walls 16.

 E. Kossecka, J. Kosny / Energy and Buildings 34 (2002) 321331 325

Table 2
Dimensionless amplitude and time shift of the transmittance and internal admittance for walls with cores composed of heavyweight concrete and insulation
(shown in Fig. 1)

Wall no. Structure factors Transmittance 1/B Admittance D/B

jii jie Amplitude Time shift (h) Amplitude Time shift (h)

Gypsumheavyweight concreteinsulationheavyweight concretestucco

1 0.408 0.048 0.270 %8.831 13.815 1.565
2 0.530 0.053 0.251 %8.524 13.917 1.231
3 0.770 0.068 0.205 %7.478 13.593 0.908
Gypsuminsulationheavyweight concreteinsulationstucco
4 0.034 0.040 0.356 %6.761 2.785 4.072
5 0.460 0.187 0.070 %8.237 4.122 1.905
6 0.234 0.222 0.059 %8.288 3.111 2.998
Homogeneous core 0.294 0.162 0.039 %20.548 7.243 2.386

Complex numbers 1/B and D/B are called the transmit-
tance and internal admittance of a wall, for angular fre-
quency o. Each of them is represented by its amplitude and
phase angleor time shift.
Dimensionless amplitude is the product of actual ampli-
tude and total resistance RT. It represents the relationship of
the surface (generated by the unit temperature excitation) to
the steady-state heat flux value (due to the unit temperature
difference), proportional to 1/RT. For the transmittance, it is
the decrement factor, DF.
The effect of structure factors, for given total resistance RT
and capacity C, on a walls frequency responses can easily be
demonstrated on the simple examples of walls 16 (Fig. 1).
Dimensionless amplitude and time shift, for the period of
24 h, are summarized in Table 2. Results for a wall with a
homogeneous core, of the same total thermal resistance and
capacity, are added for comparison.
For the same total resistance and heat capacity, the
transmittance amplitude, DF decreases with the structure
factor jie. It is worth noticing that for configurations 5 and 6,
which represent the wall type thermal mass in the center,
the DF is about six times lower than for configurations 14,
of the type insulation in the center or insulation only on
one side of the wall.
Correlations between the frequency responses and struc-
ture factors for building walls were examined by Kossecka
[16] for a set of 41 walls selected by Harris and McQuiston
[17] to represent groups of wall assemblies with similar
transient heat transfer characteristics. The paper of Harris
and McQuiston [17] became the basis for the transfer
function method calculation procedure, presented in
[18,19]. These correlations are represented by the plot of
DF versus the structure-dependent time constant RTCjie in
Fig. 3 and D/B amplitude versus the thermal mass factor Cjii
in Fig. 4.
Fig. 3 shows that the DF decreases with RTCjie, very
rapidly in the interval (010 h), from 1 to 0.5, approxi-
mately; less rapidly in the interval (1030 h), from 0.5 to 0.1,
approximately. Above the RTCjie value of 30 h, the DF
decreases very slowly. The existence of such a correlation is
non-trivial, in light of lack of a clear correlation between DF
and the time constant RTC. The non-linear dependence of DF
on RTCjie may be approximated with high accuracy by a
smooth curve. The following function, DFest, found by
Jedrzejuk [20], gives a very good fit (r 2 0:985 when
transformed to the linear dependence):
1
DFest x pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ; x RT Cjie (18)
1 axb
where a 0:014 and b 2:495.
As shown in Table 2, amplitudes of the admittance
response, D/B, are several times higher for walls 13 with
massive concrete layers located at the inner side and com-
paratively high values of the structure factor jii than for
walls 4 and 6 with insulation located on the inner side and
low values of jii. Wall 5, with a thin insulation layer at the
inner side, is an exception. Its jii value is comparable to that
for wall 2, but its D/B amplitude is 3.4 times lower at the
same time.
Amplitudes of the heat flux responses to periodic tem-
perature excitations depend on square roots of the products
of k, r and cp [15,21], which, for light materials with low
thermal conductivity, differ by an order of magnitude
from those for heavy materials with high thermal conduc-
tivity. Thepadmittance
ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi response amplitude is sensitive to the
values of krcp for the innermost layers with significant
thickness.
For a variety of building walls with different thermal
properties, the admittance response D/B amplitude shows a
significant correlation with the Cjii product, which is
represented by the plot in Fig. 4. The D/B amplitude
increases very rapidly with Cjii, up to a value of about
200 kJ/m2 K, and is almost steady above that value. How-
ever, the dependence of the admittance response amplitude
on Cjii shows larger scatter than the dependence of the DF
on the structure-dependent time constant RTCjie.
326 E. Kossecka, J. Kosny / Energy and Buildings 34 (2002) 321331

Fig. 3. Decrement factor vs. structure-dependent time constant RTCjie.

Fig. 4. Admittance response amplitude vs. thermal mass factor Cjii.

 E. Kossecka, J. Kosny / Energy and Buildings 34 (2002) 321331
3. Simple model of a building exposed to periodic
temperature
3.1. Excitations
Consider the simple model of a building in the form of a
rectangular box, with identical walls, exposed to the influ-
ence of the external temperature Te. One-dimensional heat
transfer through the walls is assumed. The building is
ventilated; the air exchange velocity is constant in time.
All other effects are neglected.
Let the external temperature Te be a harmonic function of
time, with angular frequency o and amplitude ATe . The
steady-state periodic temperature Ti is also a harmonic
function of time with angular frequency o but amplitude
ATi and some time shift tTi of the maximum with respect to
the maximum of Te:
Te t ATe eiot ; Ti t ATi eiottTi : (19)
The lower the value of the ATi =ATe ratio, the better the
thermal stability of the system.
The equation of the heat balance for this system has the
following form:
dTi
CV %Sw qi % CV nTi % Te ; (20)
dt
where qi is the heat flux across the internal surfaces of walls,
Sw the total surface area of the walls, CV rcp V the air
volume thermal capacity, and n (h%1) is the air exchange
frequency.
Solving Eq. (20) with respect to Ti, with qi given by
Eq. (17), the following expression is obtained:
CV n Sw =Bio
Ti t Te t : (21)
CV n io' Sw Dio=Bio
The response function 1/B is in the numerator and D/B is in
the denominator, both multiplied by the area of the walls.
Therefore, in general, the amplitude of the temperature Ti
increases with the amplitude of 1/B and decreases with the
amplitude of D/B. A simple recipe for good thermal stability
of this system is, thus, a low response to external tempera-
ture variations and high response to internal temperature
variations.
Values of the amplitude ratio ATi =ATe and the time shift tTi
calculated for walls 16, with room dimensions of
4:5 m * 4:5 m * 2:7 m and an air exchange frequency
n 1 (h%1), are presented in Table 3.
Results of the analysis shown in Table 3 for the simple
building model indicate that buildings having walls with
massive concrete inside layers are stable. The amplitude
ratio ATi =ATe for walls 13, with high values of the structure
factor jii and admittance response amplitude, is about 5.5
times lower than for wall 4 and about 4 times lower than for
wall 6, with low values of jii and D/B amplitude. Wall 5 is
again an exception; a comparatively high value of jii,
327
Table 3
Amplitude ratio and time shift of the internal and external temperature
oscillations for the one-room building with walls 16 (shown in Fig. 1)
Wall no. Layers (in.)a ATi =ATe tTi
Gypsumconcreteinsulationconcretestucco
1 0.53430.75 0.040 %2.878
2 0.54420.75 0.041 %2.490
3 0.56400.75 0.047 %1.996
Gypsuminsulationconcreteinsulationstucco
4 0.54600.75 0.222 %5.330
5 0.51630.75 0.142 %2.087
6 0.52620.75 0.184 %2.880
Homogeneous core 0.5100.75 0.094 %2.101
a
1 in: 25:4 mm.
which does not guarantee a high value of the admittance
response amplitude (Table 2), also does not guarantee a low
value of the internal and external temperature amplitude
ratio.
High thermal stability of the building may reduce heating
and cooling loads, especially when outdoor conditions are
not far from thermal comfort conditions. Analysis of the
simple model indicates that a high value of the internal
admittance amplitude for exterior walls is more important
for stability than a low value of the transmittance amplitude.
Modifying the model by adding massive interior walls and
changing the air exchange velocity has no effect on this
general conclusion.
Fig. 5 depicts the dependence of the internal and external
temperature amplitude ratio on the thermal mass factor
Cjii, calculated using Eq. (20), for the representative set
of walls from [18,19]. Walls 16 are also included. ATi =ATe
decreases with Cjii down to its value of about 200 kJ/m2 K.
This is the level of Cjii at which the admittance response
amplitude stops increasing (see Fig. 4). Like the D/B
amplitude, ATi =ATe is approximately constant for Cjii >
200 kJ/m2 K.
3.2. Effect of wall material configuration on the dynamic
thermal performance of the whole-building
Calculations of the annual heating and cooling loads for a
one-story ranch house were performed for six types of
exterior walls, structures 16 presented in Fig. 1. We used
the whole-building energy analysis program DOE-2.1E [5]
and typical meteorological year (TMY) data for six US
climatesAtlanta, Denver, Miami, Minneapolis, Phoenix,
and Washington, DC. Fig. 6 shows the floor plan of the
representative house, which was the subject of previous
energy efficiency studies [2,3,22,23]. It has approximately
143 m2 of living area, 123 m2 of exterior wall area, eight
windows, and two doors (one door is a glass slider; its impact
is included with that of the windows). The elevation wall
area includes 106 m2 of opaque walls, 14.3 m2 of windows,
and 2.6 m2 of door area. The following building design
328 E. Kossecka, J. Kosny / Energy and Buildings 34 (2002) 321331

Fig. 5. Correlations of the internal and external temperature amplitude ratio, calculated for the simple building model, with the thermal mass factor Cjii.

Fig. 6. Floor plan of the representative one-story ranch house used in calculating heating and cooling loads.
 E. Kossecka, J. Kosny / Energy and Buildings 34 (2002) 321331 329

Table 4
Annual energy demand for the typical family house with different types of exterior walls (GJ per year)

Wall no. Atlanta Denver Miami Minneapolis Phoenix Washington, DC

Heating
1 19.95 39.86 0.39 70.42 3.59 35.09
2 19.92 39.84 0.37 70.42 3.56 35.09
3 19.93 39.92 0.34 70.53 3.60 35.17
4 20.80 41.33 0.56 71.19 5.15 35.99
5 20.44 40.83 0.41 70.90 4.75 35.74
6 20.57 41.05 0.44 70.96 4.99 35.88
Cooling
1 6.08 0.78 34.88 1.47 28.84 3.26
2 5.99 0.78 34.60 1.39 28.77 3.17
3 5.91 0.77 34.08 1.33 28.74 3.03
4 7.94 1.98 36.61 2.31 30.75 4.79
5 7.16 1.61 35.45 1.90 30.10 4.04
6 7.44 1.79 35.73 2.04 30.34 4.30
Total
1 26.03 40.64 35.27 71.89 32.43 38.35
2 25.91 40.62 34.97 71.81 32.33 38.25
3 25.84 40.69 34.41 71.86 32.34 38.20
4 28.75 43.32 37.17 73.50 35.90 40.78
5 27.60 42.44 35.86 72.80 34.85 39.78
6 28.01 42.84 36.18 73.00 35.33 40.18

characteristics and operating conditions were used during
computer modeling:
) interior walls: 17.4 kg/m2 of floor area, specific heat
1.09 kJ/kg K;
) furniture: 16.1 kg/m2 of floor area, specific heat 1.26 kJ/
kg K, thickness 5.04 cm, total equivalent floor area 143 m2;
) thermostat set point: 21.1 8C heating, 25.6 8C cooling;
) window type: double pane clear glass, transmittance 0.88,
reflectance 0.08;
) roof insulation: R, 5.3 m2 K/W.
The base case calculation of infiltration used the Sher-
manGrimsrud infiltration method option in the DOE 2.1E
whole-building simulation model [24]. The average total
leakage area was expressed as a fraction of the floor area. In
this work, the average total leakage area was assumed as
0.0004. Values of the annual heating, cooling and total
energy demand are collected in Table 4.
Results of the whole-building dynamic modeling showed
that walls containing massive internal layers 13 have the
best annual thermal performance for the climates consid-
ered. The lowest annual heating and cooling loads are

Fig. 7. Differences in the heating, cooling, and total loads between the least-efficient wall 4 and the most-efficient wall 3.
330 E. Kossecka, J. Kosny / Energy and Buildings 34 (2002) 321331
Table 5
Percentage differences in heating, cooling, and total loads between the least effective wall 4 and the most effective wall 3
Load difference (%) Atlanta Denver
Heating 4.4 3.5
Cooling 34.5 157.5
Total 11.3 6.5
observed for wall 3, where all the thermal mass is concen-
trated in the walls interior. Wall 4, with all the insulation
material located on the interior side, generates the largest
energy demand. The energy demand for other wall config-
urationsthose with concrete cores and insulation placed on
both sides of the walls, 5 and 6falls between the energy
demand for wall 4 and the most-efficient walls, 13. These
data indicate that for continuously used residential buildings
containing massive walls, locating the insulation on the
exterior of the walls is preferable with regard to energy
savings.
Fig. 7 shows the differences in the heating, cooling, and
total loads between least-efficient wall 4 and most-efficient
wall 3 for all locations; percentage differences are collected
in Table 5. Percentage differences are, in most cases, higher
for cooling than for heating and are especially high when
heating loads are low. The highest differences in total loads,
over 11%, can be observed for Atlanta and Phoenix; the
lowest is for Minneapolis, 2.3%. This effect thus depends on
climate and is more pronounced in the case of large solar
gain and diurnal temperature differences. The average dif-
ference for all locations is 7.6%.
4. Conclusions
The analytical solution of the heat balance equation for
the simple one-room model of a building, under periodic
temperature variations, allows one to examine how material
configurations in exterior walls affect the thermal stability of
the building itself. A high value for the internal admittance
amplitude, which enters as a parameter in the solution,
definitely improves thermal stability, expressed as the ampli-
tude of periodic oscillations of internal temperature in
response to oscillations of the exterior temperature. A low
value of the transmittance amplitude is less important. Most
effective are wall assemblies with a high value of the
structure factor jii, assuming that the thermal mass, located
inside, is in good contact with the interior of the building.
Whole-building energy modeling using DOE-2.1E [5]
was performed to predict annual heating and cooling energy
demand for the one-story residential building. The results of
the computer simulation lead to the conclusion that the
material configuration of the exterior wall can significantly
affect the annual thermal performance of the whole building;
however, this effect depends on the type of climate. Walls
with massive internal layers and with high values of the
structure factor jii show the best thermal performance for
Miami Minneapolis Phoenix Washington, DC
65.6 0.9 43.1 2.3
7.4 73.8 7.0 58.2
8.0 2.3 11.0 6.7
different climatic zones: minimum annual heating and cool-
ing energy demand. Differences in total energy demand
between the configuration all insulation inside and the
most effective configuration (from the point of view of
energy savings) all insulation outside may exceed 11%
for a continuously used residential building.
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