Energy Conversion and Management 52 (2011) 2495–2500

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Energy Conversion and Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/enconman

Dynamic thermal performance of alveolar brick construction system

A. de Gracia, A. Castell, M. Medrano, L.F. Cabeza ⇑
GREA Innovació Concurrent, Edifici CREA, Universitat de Lleida, Pere de Cabrera s/n, 25001 Lleida, Spain

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Alveolar bricks are being introduced in building sector due to the simplicity of their construction system
Received 26 March 2010 and to the elimination of the insulation material. Nevertheless, it is not clear if this new system is ener-
Received in revised form 3 January 2011 getically efficient and which is its thermal behaviour. This paper presents an experimental and theoret-
Accepted 29 January 2011
ical study to evaluate the thermal behaviour of the alveolar brick construction system, compared with a
Available online 24 March 2011
traditional Mediterranean brick system with insulation. The experimental study consists of measuring
the thermal performance of four real house-like cubicles.
Keywords:
The thermal transmittance in steady-state, also known as U-value, is calculated theoretically and
Alveolar bricks
Insulation materials
experimentally for each cubicle, presenting the insulated cubicles as the best construction system, with
Buildings differences around 45% in comparison to the alveolar one. On the other hand, experimental results show
Energy consumption significantly smaller differences on the energy consumption between the alveolar and insulated con-
Dynamic thermal characteristics struction systems during summer period (around 13% higher for the alveolar cubicle). These values dem-
Experimental study onstrate the high thermal efficiency of the alveolar system. In addition, the lack of agreement between
the measured energy consumption and the calculated U-values, guides the authors to analyze the ther-
mal inertia of the different building components. Therefore, several transient parameters, extracted from
the heat transfer matrix and from experimental data, are also evaluated. It can be concluded that the alve-
olar brick construction system presents higher thermal inertia than the insulated one, justifying the low
measured energy consumption.
Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction tems decreases the energy consumption and therefore reduces

It is well known that during the last years, the energy demand
for cooling and heating in the building sector has increased signif-
icantly. Insulating materials have been widely studied and used in
order to improve the thermal behaviour of buildings. Cabeza et al.
[1] have measured experimentally the thermal performance of
buildings with different insulations in the envelope, experimental
analysis have been also developed by Soubdhan et al. [2] by mea-
suring the effect of different insulation in roofing systems. Bankval
[3] and Langlais and Klarsfeld [4] have analyzed the heat transfer
across fibrous materials, Veiseh et al. [5] have evaluated the ther-
mal conductivity of mineral wool and Simmler and Brunner [6]
have studied the use of vacuum insulation panels in building enve-
lopes. Furthermore, thermal properties of alveolar bricks and their
thermal inertia have been also previously studied [7].
Improvement of the thermal performance of building envelopes
is essential because, as it is said in the European Directive 2002/91/
EC on the Energy Performances of Buildings (EPBD), the building
sector accounts for more than 40% of Europe’s CO2 emissions [1].
Moreover, improving thermal properties of the construction sys-
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +34 973 003576; fax: +34 973 003575.
E-mail address: lcabeza@diei.udl.cat (L.F. Cabeza).
Europe’s dependence on foreign energy supplies.
In order to compare the thermal behaviour of the different con-
struction systems, thermal transmittance in steady-state, also
known as U-value [8], is commonly set as the key design parameter
[9] and it is usually regulated by law. Thermal inertia, however, is
not considered in this parameter and therefore in many national
building codes.
Moreover, the conduction transfer functions based on the heat
transfer matrix method [10–13] has been used to analyze the tran-
sient behaviour of building components and therefore their ther-
mal inertia. Several studies have been carried out using transient
parameters, evaluating the thermal inertia of the external walls
[14], studying the moisture-content-dependant parameters [15],
optimizing the thermal behaviour of multi-layered walls [16] and
evaluating the thermal response of composite buildings envelopes
[17].
Furthermore, in order to simulate the thermal performance of a
building envelope, many procedures have been presented to calcu-
late the thermal response factors and conduction transfer functions
(CTF) of multi-layered walls [18]. Moreover the transient thermal
response of multi-layered walls were evaluated by Wang and Chen
[19] using a frequency domain method and by Maestre et al. [20]
using Laplace’s method.

0196-8904/$ - see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.enconman.2011.01.022
2496 A. de Gracia et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 52 (2011) 2495–2500

Nomenclature

Cp specific heat, J kg1 K1 x frequency, rad s1

D thickness of layer, m / thermal lag, h
F decrement factor Y12 dynamic thermal transmittance, W m2 K1
H convective heat transfer coefficient, W m2 K1
mi,j transmission matrix element of the ‘‘m’’ layer Subscripts
ni,j transmission matrix element of the ‘‘n’’ layer a air chamber or superficial convection
q superficial heat transfer rate, W m2 exp experimental value
R thermal resistance, m2 K W1 ext exterior
s Laplace variable int interior
t time, s w wall
T temperature, °C or K
U thermal transmittance in steady-state, W m2 K1 Other symbols
Zi,j total transmission matrix element complex amplitude
ˆ
|| absolute value of a complex number
Greek symbols Im imaginary part of a complex number
K wall thermal transmittance, W m2 K1 Re real part of a complex number
k thermal conductivity, W m1 K1
q density, kg m3

In this paper the use of alveolar brick instead of the inclusion of tion. The structure is slightly different, without pillars. No
insulating materials in typical brick construction systems is dis- additional insulation was used in this cubicle.
cussed and compared theoretically and experimentally. The ther-
mal performance evaluation of four house-like cubicles that were The roof was done using concrete pre-cast beams and 5 cm of
built with different construction systems are presented for sum- concrete slab. The insulating material is placed over the concrete
mer and winter periods, with free floating and controlled temper- (polyurethane for the PU, alveolar and reference cubicles, and min-
ature conditions. In addition, steady and transient parameters are eral wool for the MW one), protected with a cement mortar roof
theoretically calculated and compared to the experimental results. with an inclination of 3% and a double asphalt membrane. The
physical properties of the constructive materials are detailed in
2. Experimental set-up Table 1, while the section of each cubicle is shown in Fig. 2.
In order to evaluate the energy performance for both heating
The experimental set-up consists of four real cubicles located in and cooling conditions, continental-Mediterranean weather was
Puigverd de Lleida, Spain (Fig. 1), with the same inner dimensions chosen, presenting cold winters and hot summers.
(2.4  2.4  2.4 m). Their bases consist of a mortar base of 3  3 m
with crushed stones and reinforcing bars, and the walls present
Table 1
different construction systems with the following layers from the
Physical properties of the construction materials.
inside out:
Thickness Density Thermal Thermal
(cm) (kg/m3) conductivity (W/ diffusivity
1. Reference cubicle (REF): Gypsum, perforated bricks (29  14 
m K) (m2/s)
7.5 cm), an air chamber of 5 cm, hollow bricks (50  20 
7 cm), and a cement mortar finish, with a structure made of 4 Cement 1 1350 0.700 5.18  107
mortar
mortar pillars with reinforcing bars, one in each edge of the Hollow brick 7 930 0.375 4.03  107
cubicle. Polyurethane 5 35 0.028 8  107
2. Polyurethane cubicle (PU): Same structure and layer distribution Mineral wool 5 100 0.035 3.5  107
than the reference cubicle but with 5 cm of polyurethane Perforated 14 900 0.543 6.03  107
brick
sprayed foam between the perforated bricks and the air
Plastering 1 1150 0.57 4.96  107
chamber. Concrete pre- 25 760 0.472 6.21  107
3. Mineral wool cubicle (MW): Same structure and layer distribu- cast beam
tion than the reference cubicle but with 5 cm of mineral wool Concrete 5 2150 1.650 7.67  107
between the perforated bricks and the air chamber. Double asphalt 1 2100 0.700 3.3  107
membrane
4. Alveolar cubicle (ALV): Gypsum, alveolar brick (30  19  Crushed stones 10 1450 2.0 1.31  106
29 cm), and cement mortar finish. The alveolar brick has a spe- Alveolar brick 29 1080 0.27 5.19  107
cial design which provides both thermal and acoustic insula-

Fig. 1. Experimental set-up located in Puigverd de Lleida.

 A. de Gracia et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 52 (2011) 2495–2500 2497

Fig. 2. Construction system of the brick and alveolar cubicles.

Finally, to analyze the thermal behaviour of each construction 3. Methodology

system, the following data were registered for each cubicle at five
minutes intervals during 2008 and 2009: 3.1. Thermal transmittance in steady-state (U-value)

 Internal wall temperatures (east, west, north, south, roof, and As it is well known, the thermal transmittance in steady-state,
floor) and external south wall temperature. also known as U-value, can be calculated theoretically as the in-
 Internal ambient temperature and humidity (at a height of verse of the total thermal resistance of a composite wall, sum of
1.5 m). the thermal resistances of each layer in the wall.
 Heat flux at the south wall (inside and outside).
1
 Electrical consumption of the heating/cooling device. U¼ Pn di
ð1Þ
1
 Solar radiation. hext
þ i¼1 ki þ h1int
 External ambient temperature and humidity.
Both thickness and thermal conductivity are known for each
All temperatures were measured using Pt-100 DIN B probes, constructed layer. However, the inner and outer convective heat
calibrated with a maximum error of ±0.3 °C. The air humidity sen- transfer coefficients are assumed to be 7.69 and 25 W/m2 K,
sors are ELEKTRONIK EE21FT6AA21 with an accuracy of ±2%. The respectively, as it is detailed in [21].
heat flux sensors used are HUKSFLUX HFP01 with an accuracy of An experimental thermal transmittance in steady-state is also
±5%, and the electrical network analysers are ARDETEM PECA 15. calculated. The method used consists on measuring the internal
Fig. 3 shows in a schematic diagram the location of all the mea- heat flux of the south wall per m2, and the inner and outer
surement sensors of the experimental set-up. temperatures of the cubicles. The external heat flux was also mea-
The experimental set-up offers the possibility to perform two sured but not used because it was more affected by external con-
kinds of experiments: free-floating temperature and fixed ditions such as wind. The temperatures were referred to the
controlled temperature. Electric radiators and heat pumps were surface south walls and not to the environments, therefore a wall
used to control the temperature during winter and summer, thermal transmittance (Kw) can be calculated using the following
respectively. expression.
q
Kw;exp ¼ ð2Þ
T w;ext  T w;int
Data used in this analysis was collected during the night from
the 2nd to the 3rd of February 2009 from 18:00 to 8:00 to avoid
solar radiation and reach quasi-steady-state conditions [1]. The
measuring interval was set on 5 min.
The convective heat transfer coefficients detailed in [21]
must be used to calculate the experimental U-value between
environments.
1
U exp ¼ 1 1
ð3Þ
hext
þ Kw;exp þ h1int

3.2. Dynamic thermal characteristics

The heat transfer matrix method described in [11] is used to ob-

tain the dynamic characteristics for the walls of each cubicle. Con-
sidering constant thermal properties of an homogeneous and
isotropic layer and one-dimensional heat flux, the heat transfer
equation in a solid layer of a building component is
Fig. 3. Schematic diagram of the experimental set-up.
2498 A. de Gracia et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 52 (2011) 2495–2500

@Tðx; tÞ k @ 2 Tðx; tÞ Apart from the dynamic thermal characteristics extracted from
¼ ð4Þ the heat transfer matrix, two experimental transient parameters
@t qC p @x2
are also used to evaluate the thermal inertia of a building: the ther-
And the heat flow for a unity surface through the wall is given mal lag between temperature peaks, and the thermal stability coef-
by ficient (TSC) [7], which is the ratio between the inner and outer
@Tðx; tÞ thermal amplitudes (difference between minimum and maximum
qðx; tÞ ¼ k ð5Þ values).
@x
In order to calculate these two experimental parameters, exper-
Furthermore, as developed in [12], the expression that relates, imental data from the 15th and the 16th of July 2009 were ana-
in terms of Laplace variables, the temperature and heat flux at both lyzed under free floating condition. The inner and outer ambient
sides of the m layer is temperature data, of the two days, was adjusted as
!   !
T^ ext m11 m12 T^ int T i ¼ a0 þ a1  t þ a2 sinðw1 t þ a3Þ þ a4 sinðw2 t þ a5Þ
¼  ð6Þ
^ext
q m21 m22 ^int
q þ a6 sinðw3 t þ a7Þ ð18Þ

where the matrix coefficients can be calculated for each solid layer where w1, w2, and w3 are the frequencies corresponding to periods
by of 24, 12, and 6 h, respectively, and ai are the coefficients used to ad-
rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi! just the function. Once the inner and outer temperatures are ad-
sC p q justed, the thermal lag, and the maximum and minimum values
m11 ¼ m22 ¼ cosh d ð7Þ are calculated.
k
 qffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
sC p q
sinh d k 4. Results and discussion
m12 ¼ qffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ð8Þ
sC p q
k k The theoretical and experimental results of the U-value for each
rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi! cubicle are presented in Table 2. The experimental values of the
sC p q sC p q
m21 ¼k sinh d ð9Þ thermal transmittance in steady-state have a relative error of
k k
8.8% due to the propagation of error in the measurement devices.
For an air chamber or a surface resistance between the layer and As expected, looking at the theoretical results, the insulated cubi-
the environment, the matrix coefficients are cles (PU and MW cubicles) present the lowest thermal transmit-
tance in steady-state (specifically the PU cubicle), reducing
m11 ¼ m22 ¼ 1 ð10Þ around 62% and 45% the values of the reference and alveolar cubi-
m12 ¼ Ra ð11Þ cle, respectively. Due to the morphology of the alveolar brick, the
alveolar cubicle presents a lower U-value in comparison to the ref-
m21 ¼ 0 ð12Þ
erence cubicle (with two layers of bricks and an air chamber). The
Finally for a multi-layered wall, the overall operational trans- experimental U-values follow the same trend as the theoretical
mission matrix Z is given by the products of the individual trans- ones, but presenting results about 15% lower. These differences
mission matrices of the separate slabs. could be due to the omission of contact thermal resistance be-
!     tween layers in the theoretical calculations.
T^ ext 1 Ra;ext m11 m12 n11 n12 In order to analyze experimentally the thermal behaviour of the
¼
^ext
q 0 1 m21 m22 n21 n22 cubicles for winter conditions, the energy consumption of the elec-
  ^ ! tric radiators, with a controlled temperature of 24 °C, from Febru-
1 Ra;int T int ary 2nd to 8th, 2009 was registered, and it is presented in Fig. 4.
 ð13Þ
0 1 ^int
q Similar energy demand for the alveolar and the insulated cubicles
can be observed, achieving a reduction around 37% and 38%,
!   ^ ! respectively, in comparison to the reference cubicle.
T^ ext Z 11 Z 12 T int
¼ ð14Þ
^ext
q Z 21 Z 22 ^int
q
Table 2
As it is described in [10,15], substituting
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffithe Laplace variable s U-value comparison for theoretical and experimental calculations.
in the total transfer matrix Z, for jx (j ¼ 1), the decrement fac-
REF PU MW ALV
tor (f), the thermal lag (/), and the dynamic thermal transmittance
2
U-value theo. (W/m K) 1.21 0.38 0.44 0.78
(Y12) can be calculated.
U-value exp. (W/m2 K) 1.04 0.30 0.40 0.64
1
f ¼ ð15Þ
jZ 12 jU
  Reference Polyurethane Mineral wool Alveolar
12 ImðZ 12 Þ
/¼ arctan ð16Þ 160
p ReðZ 12 Þ 140
1 120
Energy (kW·h)

jY 12 j ¼ f  U ¼ ð17Þ 100
jZ 12 j
80
The decrement factor gives an idea of the thermal wave damp- 60
ening when passing from outside to inside [14], and the thermal 40
lag gives the delay between the outer temperature and inner heat 20
0
flux peaks. Furthermore, the thermal transmittance represents the
02/02/09 03/02/09 04/02/09 05/02/09 06/02/09 07/02/09 08/02/09
ratio between the complex amplitude of the heat flow rate through
the surface adjacent to zone 1 (inner), and the complex amplitude Fig. 4. Accumulated energy consumption in the experimental cubicles using
of the temperature in zone 2 (outer). electric radiators as heating elements. February 2nd–8th, 2009.
 A. de Gracia et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 52 (2011) 2495–2500 2499

Reference Polyurethane Mineral wool Alveolar

35
30
Energy (kW·h)

25
20
15
10
5
0
22/07/08 23/07/08 24/07/08 25/07/08 26/07/08 27/07/08 28/07/08

Fig. 5. Accumulated energy consumption in the experimental cubicles using heat

pumps as cooling elements. July 22nd–28th, 2008.

Moreover, the thermal behaviour for summer conditions was

also studied. Fig. 5 shows the accumulated energy consumption
of the heat pump (set-point of 24 °C) from July 22nd to 28th,
2008. The energy consumption of the alveolar and the insulated
cubicles during summer is around 29% and 50% lower than the
consumption of the reference one, respectively. In addition, differ-
ences between the alveolar and the insulated cubicles are about 2%
for winter and 13% for summer period.
Furthermore, the inner and outer environmental temperatures
of each cubicle, in free floating conditions, from June 7th to 15th,
2009 are plotted in Fig. 6. The cubicle with less thermal inertia
and less insulation (the reference one) shows higher oscillations
of inner temperature (around 2.5 °C between maximum and min-
imum). In addition, the insulated and the alveolar brick cubicles
show similar inner temperature curves, with oscillations around
1 °C and 1.5 °C, respectively.
Insulated cubicles are analyzed as one, because of the small dif-
ferences observed in the free floating oscillations and in the regis-
tered energy consumption (less than 2% lower for the polyurethane
cubicle than for the mineral wool one).
The energy consumption of the alveolar cubicle both for winter
and summer period was lower than the expected (Table 2, and Figs.
4 and 5). In order to understand this low energy consumption of
the alveolar cubicle (close to the insulated ones), dynamic thermal
properties were evaluated and are presented in Table 3.
The alveolar cubicle presents the lowest value of decrement fac-
tor f, with a reduction of 59% and 44% in comparison to the refer-
OUTSIDE REFERENCE
MIN.WOOL ALVEOLAR
40
35
Temperature (ºC)
Fig. 7. Peak temperatures lag in free floating conditions. July 15th and 16th, 2009.
ence and both insulated cubicles, respectively. Moreover, the
thermal lag (/) presents a lag of 12.55 h between the outer tem-
perature and the inner heat flux peak for the alveolar brick. This
thermal lag is 1.63 times higher than the reference cubicle and
1.34 times higher than the insulated ones. Finally, the dynamic
thermal transmittance (Y12) presents similar results for alveolar
and insulated cubicles, reducing around 71% the value in compar-
ison to the reference cubicle.
The experimental transient parameters are also shown in Table
3. The thermal stability coefficient presents a relative error around
13% due to propagation of error in the measurements. The PU cubi-
cle presents the lowest thermal stability coefficient. The alveolar
cubicle has less thermal stability than the mineral wool one, and
as expected, the reference cubicle shows the worst thermal stabil-
ity. On the other hand, the alveolar cubicle presents the highest re-
sults of thermal lag between temperature peaks, achieving an
increment of almost 1 h in comparison to the insulated cubicles
and more than 1.5 h to the reference one (Fig. 7). TSC presents
the insulated cubicles as the ones with the best thermal behaviour
even though all the dynamic thermal characteristics extracted
from the heat transfer matrix, and the experimental thermal lag
between temperature peaks, show similar or better results for
the alveolar cubicle in comparison to the insulated ones. This lack
POLYURETHANE of agreement between parameters is because the TSC only consid-
ers the temperature peaks reduction, and it is not affected by the
thermal lag.

30
5. Conclusions
25

20
This paper presents a theoretical study and an experimental
set-up to analyze the thermal behaviour of buildings and to evalu-
15 ate if the use of alveolar bricks instead of a Mediterranean typical
10
construction system with insulation is energetically efficient.
07/6/09 08/6/09 09/6/09 10/6/09 11/6/09 12/6/09 13/6/09 14/6/09 15/6/09 The U-value study shows, for both theoretical and experimental
values, results around 45% lower for the insulated cubicles than for
Fig. 6. Outside and inside temperatures. June 7th–5th, 2009. the alveolar one. These differences are not reflected in the mea-
sured energy consumptions, where the alveolar cubicles only con-
sume 2% and 13% more than the insulated ones, for winter and
Table 3 summer periods, respectively. This disagreement may be caused
Thermal transient parameters for each cubicle.
by the thermal inertia, which is not considered in the U-value cal-
REF PU MW ALV culations (non transient parameter). Therefore, dynamic thermal
Decrement factor 0.51 0.38 0.38 0.19 parameters were analyzed.
Thermal lag (h) 6.87 8.32 8.56 12.55 The dynamic thermal characteristics of the alveolar cubicle, ex-
Dynamic thermal transmittance (W/m2 K) 0.623 0.15 0.17 0.15 tracted from the heat transfer matrix, indicate similar (dynamic
TSC 0.167 0.029 0.043 0.084
thermal transmittance) or better transient behaviour (thermal lag
Temperature peak lag (h) 7.92 8.83 8.75 9.58
and decrement factor) in comparison to the insulated ones.
2500 A. de Gracia et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 52 (2011) 2495–2500
Moreover, the experimental transient parameters, thermal sta-
bility coefficient and thermal lag between temperature peaks, were
also analyzed. Thermal stability coefficient show the best results
for the insulated cubicles, in disagreement with all the other stud-
ied transient parameters. This is because TSC is affected by the
thermal amplitudes but not by their lag, while the other parame-
ters consider both.
Even though the U-value is the most commonly used parameter
(usually a design requirement by law) to analyze the thermal per-
formance of a building component, both theoretical and experi-
mental studies conclude that this analysis must include the
evaluation of transient parameters. Otherwise several construction
systems can be underestimated and wrongly discarded for the de-
sign of buildings.
Acknowledgements
The work was partially funded by the Spanish government
(ENE2008-06687-C02-01/CON) and the European Union (COST Ac-
tion COST TU0802), in collaboration with the companies Synthesia,
Honeywell, Gremi de Rajolers, Hispalyt, Prefabricats Lacoma, Cerá-
micas Sampedro, and Cityhall of Puigverd de Lleida. The authors
would like to thank the Catalan Government for the quality accred-
itation given to their research group (2009 SGR 534).
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