Measurement Method of Thermal Diffusivity of the Building Wall for Summer and Winter Seasons in Poland
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energies Article Measurement Method of Thermal Diffusivity of the Building Wall for Summer and Winter Seasons in Poland Mariusz Owczarek 1,† , Stefan Owczarek 1,†, Adam Baryłka 2,† and Andrzej Grzebielec 3,*,† 1 Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geodesy, Military University of Technology, 00-908 Warsaw, Poland; [email protected] (M.O.); [email protected] (S.O.) 2 Building Research Center, 01-434 Warsaw, Poland; [email protected] 3 Institute of Heat Engineering, Faculty of Power and Aeronautical Engineering, Warsaw University of Technology, 00-665 Warsaw, Poland * Correspondence: [email protected]; Tel.: +48-602-277-873 † These authors contributed equally to this work. Abstract: The thermal diffusivity of building materials is an extremely important parameter influenc- ing the subsequent thermal comfort of building users. By definition, thermal diffusivity describes how quickly heat from a hot source can flow through a material. Therefore, this parameter includes both the thermal conductivity and the heat capacity of the material. This parameter is often neglected in heat-related calculations which, in the case of dynamic problems, leads to unreliable results. It should be taken into account that heat flows through all materials at a finite speed. On the other hand, knowing the correct thermal diffusivity value of building materials, it is possible to accurately determine the internal parameters in rooms over time. There are several methods for determining thermal diffusivity, most of which are destined to determine this property in laboratories. The aim of the present research is to show how the thermal diffusivity of materials can be determined in existing buildings. The presented method can be used to determine more real thermal parameters used for Citation: Owczarek, M.; Owczarek, thermal calculations in buildings, for example, during energy audits or when calculating the demand S.; Baryłka, A.; Grzebielec A. for cooling for air conditioning or heat for space heating. This research presents the results for a Measurement Method of Thermal Diffusivity of the Building Wall for 60 cm brick wall. Thermal diffusivity was determined for specific summer and winter days—most Summer and Winter Seasons in representative of the whole year. This research has shown that the applied method should be used in Poland. Energies 2021, 14, 3836. the summer period, due to the fact that the wall has greater temperature fluctuations. The obtained https://doi.org/10.3390/en14133836 results are comparable with the previously mentioned laboratory methods. However, due to the fact that the materials analyzed on the spot, the results are more reliable, and also take into account Academic Editor: Luisa F. Cabeza changes in the value of thermal diffusivity resulting from the use of binders, inaccuracies in joining and external layers made of other materials. Received: 20 May 2021 Accepted: 22 June 2021 Keywords: thermal diffusivity measurements; temperature distribution in building element; two Published: 25 June 2021 dimensional approximation; Ångström method Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- 1. Introduction iations. Building materials comprise a large group of substances. Among them are thermal insulations with a thermal conductivity of l = 0.02 W/(m·W), materials that conduct heat well, such as metals with a conductivity coefficient of several hundred W/(m·K) and intermediate materials. The cp—specific heat value also covers a wide range from 200 to Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. 1000 J/(kg·K). Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. In turn, the coefficient of thermal diffusivity is a parameter that determines the speed of This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and heat propagation in the body in the way of conduction [1,2]. It depends on the conductivity conditions of the Creative Commons but also on the heat capacity of the material. Thermal conductivity characterizes the flow of Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// conducted heat, and capacity characterizes the amount of energy that must be supplied by creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ or received from a given part of the sample to change its temperature by a certain amount. 4.0/). Energies 2021, 14, 3836. https://doi.org/10.3390/en14133836 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/energies Energies 2021, 14, 3836 2 of 11 Thus, diffusivity is an essential parameter in the analysis of non-stationary heat conduction. Thermal diffusivity is defined as [3] l a = , (1) r · cp where: a is thermal diffusivity (m2/s), l is thermal conductivity (W/m·K), r is density 3 (kg/m ) and cp is specific heat (J/(kg·K)). Usually, materials with high thermal conduc- tivity also have a high density, which limits the variability of thermal diffusivity. Com- paring the most insulating materials with the best heat-conducting materials, a thermal diffusivity value of a = 1.54 × 10−7 m2/s can be obtained for aerogel insulation [4], and a = 1.00 × 10−4 m2/s for steel [5]. However, the lowest diffusivity value should not be pre-assigned to the best insulation and the highest should not be pre-assigned to the best heat conductor. This article deals with the measurements of the thermal diffusivity of a wall made of mineral materials such as bricks and concrete. Based on the results of the works [6–8], the thermal diffusivity of concrete covers the range 5.090 × 10−8–1.283 × 10−5 m2/s. Concrete is a material with a large variety of components and as such it has wide range of possible values of this parameter [9,10]. The thermal diffusivity of a brick wall, obtained from [11–13] is in the range of 0.35 × 10−6–3.34 × 10−6 m2/s. Knowledge of thermal diffusivity values can also be used to evaluate other physical properties. By measuring the thermal diffusivity, it is possible to determine the hardness of steel [5] or the physical properties of new nanomaterials [14]. For building materials, thermal diffusivity often depends on moisture saturation [15,16]. For concrete, the ability to absorb water depends not only on the composition but also on the proportion of ingredients [17]. For bricks, the change of moisture saturation causes a 200% change in the value of the thermal conductivity coefficient and a 70% change in thermal effusivity [18]. Most of the methods for determining the thermal diffusivity coefficient consist of mea- suring the temperature of the tested sample during variable heat flow. The phenomenon of changing the heat flux is forced artificially in the laboratory or is the result of natural processes. Many methods compare the change in the measured temperature on the surface of the sample material with the change in temperature obtained as a result of calculations for known boundary conditions. A review of the methods based on the periodic boundary condition is presented in publication [19]. The Ångstrom method [20–22] is the most popu- lar in this case. For this application, the measurement of two parameters characterizing non-stationary heat transfer is required; phase shift and amplitude decay with distance from the periodic boundary condition [23,24]. By analyzing the response of the sample to periodic extortion, it is even possible to determine the thermal properties of a multi-layer material [25–28]. The method based on the stepwise variability of the boundary condition was discussed in publications [11,29]. The next group of methods for determining thermal diffusivity is the use of variable natural conditions. In these studies, it was decided to use this method. This solution allows the obtaining of the thermal diffusivity in the place where the sample is located and where the heat flow directly influences the conformation of a building’s users. In the experiment, the outside wall’s temperature is influenced by solar radiation, air tempera- ture, air humidity, wind speed and the occurrence of rainfall. In this study, the method for determining thermal diffusivity based on the approximation of the temperature measured in the wall has been presented. It was assumed that the approximating function satisfies the Fourier equation and the thermal diffusivity was determined by solving the inverse problem. Calculations were made for the selected summer and winter day. This parameter was then determined using the Ångström method. This method is based on measurements of amplitude and temperature phase difference. The advantages of this method are its simplicity of use, and its well-established correct operation, confirmed by many works. Based on the measurements made, this method could be directly applied. The Ångström Energies 2021, 14, 3836 3 of 11 method uses the entire month of August for summer and January for winter as the measur- ing time. The results of both methods were convergent. Finally, a summary is provided and conclusions are drawn. 2. Method Description The method described in [30] was used to measure the thermal diffusivity for a selected wall over a period of six months. Figure1 shows the procedure for the used method. Figure 1. Method procedure. The measuring apparatus described in detail in [30,31] was used. Temperature sensors were placed in the wall of the existing building. The wall was 0.6 m thick and made of bricks. The distance of the wall temperature sensors from the side walls, ceiling and floor was so large that the heat flow was assumed to be one dimensional. The outer surface of the tested wall was exposed to natural weather conditions. In the experimental study, Pt1000 temperature sensors were used. The stand is shown in Figure2. external side examined wall 0.6 PC T1, x=0.35T1, T2, x=0.30T2, T3, x=0.25 T3, T4, x=0.20 T4, T5, x=0.15 T5, internal side data logger Figure 2.