The Impact of Thermal Inertia on the Indoor Thermal Environment of Light Steel Framing Constructions

Eduardo Roque, Romeu Vicente, Ricardo M. S. F. Almeida and Victor M. Ferreira
Additional contact information
Eduardo Roque: RISCO—Risks and Sustainability in Construction, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Aveiro, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal
Romeu Vicente: RISCO—Risks and Sustainability in Construction, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Aveiro, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal
Ricardo M. S. F. Almeida: Department of Civil Engineering, Polytechnic Institute of Viseu, School of Technology and Management, Campus Politécnico de Repeses, 3504-510 Viseu, Portugal
Victor M. Ferreira: RISCO—Risks and Sustainability in Construction, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Aveiro, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal

Energies, 2022, vol. 15, issue 9, 1-17

Abstract: Typically, reinforced concrete and brick masonry construction is the most common construction system of the majority of the southern European residential building stock. However, the lightweight steel framing (LSF) construction system has been progressively assuming a relevant position in the residential sector. Since LSF is not the traditional construction system, the indoor thermal environment of these buildings has not been widely studied and discussed considering the southern European climate context. The low thermal inertia of this construction system is commonly pointed to as a possible weakness in warmer climates. The present work aims to address this research gap by evaluating and comparing the LSF and masonry construction systems in terms of the indoor thermal environment focusing on the level of thermal inertia. The considered methodology lies in a long-term experimental campaign based on the construction and monitoring of two identical experimental test cells, differing only in the construction system. The test cells are in the central region of Portugal. The monitoring period elapsed over an entire year. Dynamic simulations are also carried out with a model experimentally validated to consider a wider range of climatic conditions. It is shown that internally insulating the ground floor has an impact on the indoor thermal environment of the LSF test cell by accentuating the indoor air temperature fluctuations and magnitude of the extreme peak values. However, the results also reveal that the faster and closer response to the outdoor conditions may be beneficial for LSF buildings during the heating season.

Keywords: light steel framing; masonry; indoor thermal environment; southern European; thermal inertia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/9/3061/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/9/3061/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:15:y:2022:i:9:p:3061-:d:799530

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().