Influence of using clay block with increassed mass on energy performance of an office builidng in Nis

Abstract

The objective of the research was to compare various types of clay blocks in terms of construction thermal inertia parameters and the influence they would have on the energy performance of an office building located in Nis. For this, a new type of clay block with increased mass is proposed, and a custom approach for determining all relevant indicators is described, intensively relying on building energy performance simulations. Fourteen configurations of external walls made of clay blocks, including the newly proposed block with increased mass, were investigated using EnergyPlus with a custom weather file to obtain construction thermal storage indicators, i.e., time lag and decrement factor. The results show the average decrement factor of less than 1% and the average time lag of approximately 9 hours for the newly proposed clay block, which is very similar to the values obtained for commercially available clay blocks. In addition, the same model of the building was used to check the influence that this increased mass has on the energy performance of the building served by a low temperature radiant and fan coil system. The results indicate the possibility of reducing heating energy consumption by 3.65% by using the increased mass clay block, while maintaining similar wall U-values, when compared with regularly used clay blocks, with a negligible change in cooling energy consumption.