The Sustainable Benefits and Applications of Thermal Mass in Hot-Humid Climates Jesse Madden The University of Texas at Austin Source:

 Different building materials have different thermal mass  Concrete, masonry, adobe, and others have high thermal mass Thermal Mass: the ability to store energy Source:

 Thermal inertia is the naturally occurring process of heat accumulation and release  Used to dampen heating and cooling loads to decrease energy consumption Thermal Inertia: the process of the use of thermal mass

Thermal Inertia delays and reduces peak energy loads Source:

 Building orientation, window placement, and thermal mass positioning Source: Factors Affecting Thermal Inertia

 Cold-dry climates because of the large temperature variation throughout a 24-hour period  Thermal mass in itself is not a new idea Traditional and Historic Uses Source:

 Marie Kerbacher and Atila Novoselac of UT produced a study to determine how thermal mass would perform in a climate like Austin, TX  Found that a building with Austin-ideal design elements reduced energy consumption more than an identical building in Phoenix, AZ  The best performing buildings took advantage of night ventilation New Studies for Hot-Humid Climates

Source: Thermal Mass with Night Ventilation

 Researcher Edna Shaviv studied buildings with thermal mass and night ventilation in Israel  Found that night ventilation could help to reduce indoor air temperature by about 9°F  The introduction of fresh air at night purges the released heat from the thermal mass Thermal Mass and Night Ventilation

 Concrete is a huge contributor of atmospheric CO 2  How ethical is it to use an environmentally harmful material to supposedly increase sustainability? Ethics: the production of cement Source:

 Edward Hacker produced a study to quantitatively determine the embodied and operational CO 2 of a building using thermal mass  Used a 100 year lifecycle analysis  Compared three buildings with heavy thermal mass to a lightweight building  Defined payback period as the time when the operational CO 2 savings outweighed the difference of embodied CO 2 to that of the lightweight constant Source: Environmental Impacts of Thermal Mass

WeightEmbodied CO 2 (tons) ECO 2 Payback Time (years) CO 2 Saved (tons) Light32.03 Medium Medium-Heavy Heavy Source: Hacker, J Embodied and Operational Carbon Dioxide Emission from Housing: A Case Study on the Effects of Thermal Mass and Climate Change. Energy and Buildings, 40 (3), Retrieved June 8, 2015, from sciencedirect.com Thermal Mass CO 2 Savings

 There is no universally optimized building design  Each project should be individually designed based on location and climate  Thermal mass in conjunction with night ventilation and building orientation can produce a greatly sustainable building Source: Thermal Inertia is an Important Element of Passive Solar Design