CLIMATOLOGY

TOPICS
• Thermal Quantities.
• Thermal conductivity/resistivity
• Thermal resistance/conductance
• Thermal transmittance
• Effect of multilayered bodies
• Thermal bridging
• Thermal behaviour of different materials
• Time lag & Decrement factor
• Thermal behaviour of building elements and materials.
 Thermal Quantities
Temperature

Heat

Specific Heat

Latent heat
Phases of matter

Gas - very weak

high temp
intermolecular forces, low pressure
rapid random motion

Liquid -
intermolecular
forces bind closest neighbours

Solid - strong low temp

intermolecular forces high pressure
 Methods of Heat Transfer

Conduction

Convection

Radiation
 Heat

Heat is a form of energy, appearing as molecular movement in substances or

as 'radiant heat', a certain wavelength band of electromagnetic radiation in
space (700 to 10000 nm).

Energy

Work
 Thermal quantities

Specific heat of a substance is the amount of heat energy necessary to

cause unit temperature increase of a unit mass of the substance

• The higher the specific heat of a substance, the more heat it will absorb for a
given increase in temperature

Latent heat of a substance is the amount of heat energy absorbed by

unit mass of the substance at change of state (from solid to liquid or
liquid to gaseous) without any change in temperature.
 Heat flow rate

Power is the ability to carry out a

certain work in unit time: it is
measured in joules per second,
J/s, which is given a special name
'Watt'
• Rate of energy flow
 Conductivity

Q α Area

Q α 1/Thickness

Q α Temp difference

q = the resultant heat flow (Watts)

k = the thermal conductivity of the material
(W/mK).
A = the surface area through which the heat
flows (m²)
∆T = the temperature difference between the
warm and cold sides of the material (K), and
L = the thickness / length of the material (m)
 Conductivity
A material’s ability to conduct heat.

• It is measured as the rate of heat flow (flow of energy per unit time) through
unit area of unit thickness of the material, when there is a unit temperature
difference between the two sides.
• Its value varies between 0.03 W/m degC for insulating materials and up to
400 W/m degC for metals. The lower the conductivity, the better insulator a
material is.
• Resistivity is the reciprocal of this quantity (1/k) measured in units of:
m degC/W Better insulators will have higher resistivity values.
 Thermal Conductance (C)

Conductivity per unit area for a specified thickness. Used for standard building
materials.

• Conductance is the heat flow rate through a unit area of the body (i.e. the
density of heat flow rate) when the temperature difference between the two
surfaces is 1 degC.
• In basic building materials, heat flow is usually measured by conductance (C),
not conductivity. Conductance is a material's conductivity per unit area for the
object's thickness  (in units of W/m²K for metric
• Conductance is an object property and depends on both the material and its
thickness. 

• Resistance of a body is the product of its thickness

and the resistivity of its material.
• b = thickness , k = conductivity; C= Conductance
 Multilayer body

• If a body consists of several layers of different materials, its total resistance will
be the sum of the resistances of the individual layers.

• The conductance of such a multilayer body (Cb) can be found by finding its
total resistance (Rb) and taking its reciprocal:

Surface conductance

1/fi = internal surface resistance

Rb = resistance of the body
1/fo= external surface resistance
 Thermal Transmittance or U-value

The reciprocal of this air-to-air resistance is the air-to-air transmittance, or U-

value.

• This is the same unit as conductance because

it’s a measure of the same thing:
• conductance is used for a specific material, U-
factor is used for a specific assembly.
• Lower U-factors mean less conduction, which
means better insulation.
 Thermal Resistance (R-value = 1/U)

A material’s ability to resist heat flow.

• The reciprocal of thermal conductance, R is measured in hours needed for 1 W

to flow through 1 m2 of a given thickness of a material when the temperature
difference is 1ºC.
• Thermal resistance values are sometimes tabulated for both unit thicknesses
and for a sample of material with a known thickness. 
• That said, windows are often expressed with U-factor and walls are often
expressed with R-values.
Time lag & Decrement factor
 Time lag & Decrement factor

The rate at which any material will transmit heat depends on two factors:

1 if it is of a high conductivity material, this rate will be faster.

2 if it is a dense material and it has a high specific heat, the rate will be slower, as
it will absorb much of the incoming heat before it can start transmitting any

φ = 10 hours for each 0.3 m

thickness.
 Time lag & Decrement factor
Effect of insulation
Periodic heat flow calculation

With a 100-mm concrete slab, the placing

of a 40 mm glass wool insulation gives
the following variation:

1. Insulation on the outside reduces the heat flow rate into the mass – less heat will
enter the mass in a given time, or, it will take much longer to 'fill up' the thermal
storage capacity of the mass.
2. Insulation on the inside will not affect the 'filling up' process and, although it will
reduce the heat emission to the inside space, it will not change the periodicity.
 Means of thermal control

1. Mechanical controls
2. Structural controls
3. Ventilation and air movement

1. Mechanical controls