Material Thermophysical Properties

General tab on Materials Dialog.

Materials are used to define the properties of construction layers.  There are 2 types of material:

1. Detailed properties including the thermophysical properties, surface properties and visual appearance for the material.
2. Simple resistive material with no thermal mass.  This option will typically be used to model air gaps.

Material Thickness

Force thickness

If the material should only be used in layers of a particular thickness then check this box and enter the material thickness that applies below. When materials having this option set are selected on the Constructions dialog the layer thickness will be fixed with the material thickness described below.

This option may be useful for materials such as bricks, tiles, insulation and PCMs which are usually supplied with a particular thickness.

Material thickness

The fixed layer thickness of the material when selected.

Detailed properties

Thermal bulk properties

Thermal conductivity

This field is used to enter the thermal conductivity of the material layer. Thermal conductivity must be greater than zero.

Specific heat

This field represents the specific heat of the material layer. Only positive values of specific heat are allowed.

Density

This field is used to enter the density of the material layer. Density must be a positive quantity.

Simple resistance

Thermal resistance

This field is used to enter the thermal resistance (R-value) of the material layer.

Note: Materials defined using an R-value do not contribute to construction (and hence building) thermal mass in the calculations and so should be used with care, especially if you plan to use the model for dynamic thermal simulations.