You need to take your search for answers back to any basic thermodynamics text you may have ever studied. In a steady state heat transfer calculation, one
can ignore the heat storage capacity of any of the materials in the heat flow path. However a transient calculation needs to consider that the materials themselves store and emit heat as their temperature changes. Heavy weight materials more so than lightweight
materials. By extension in Energy+, you can’t change the temperature of a room without also storing or extracting energy from all the objects in the room including floors, walls, and ceilings.
Energy+ will do this for all your surfaces if you fully define them. There are also provisions for considering other contents of the room that are nor defined
in the floors, walls, and ceilings (internal mass objects). The how is in the engineering reference documents, the why is basic physics….
Ned Lyon, P.E. (MA)
Staff Consultant
SIMPSON GUMPERTZ & HEGER
781.907.9000 main
781.907.9350 direct
781.907.9009 fax
www.sgh.com
From: EnergyPlus_Support@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:EnergyPlus_Support@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Amir
Sent: Thursday, March 29, 2012 11:44 AM
To: EnergyPlus_Support@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [EnergyPlus_Support] Re: Thermal mass methods
Thanks for reply. I did take a look at and searched through most of the Energy Plus documents available on the website. Although thermal mass and its applications in Energy Plus are repeatedly mentioned in these documents, I
still could not find the basic fundamentals behind the consideration of thermal mass itself. The very basic methods that were used to introduce the concept of thermal mass in the Energy Plus program in the first place. Any help?
--- In EnergyPlus_Support@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Linda Lawrie <linda@...> wrote:
>
> It probably would be a good idea for you to read the GettingStarted
> document (at least the first section that explains about EnergyPlus)
> and then the Engineering Reference document.
>
> www.energyplus.gov has all the documents.
>
> At 11:22 AM 3/27/2012, Amir wrote:
> >Dear all,
> >
> >I have a question about the Energy Plus built-in capabilities
> >dealing with thermal mass. Generally speaking, could someone tell me
> >what methods (scientific/computational)the Energy Plus uses to deal
> >with thermal mass? How does thermal mass account for in Energy Plus?
> >I am looking for the methods that the E+ uses to take into account
> >the effects of thermal mass.
>
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