Considering the ubiquity of concrete's structural, architectural, and environmental applications in buildings, a research study was carried out to determine how the thermal mass property of concrete could improve the energy performance of buildings. The results have shown that extreme climate zones can better exploit the thermal mass property of the material. This article initially reviews the fundamental concepts of thermal mass. It then specifically explores the impact of thermal mass concrete on building energy performance in six U.S. climate zones through Energy Plus simulation and analysis. The building occupancy types (office and residential), window-to-wall area ratio, and height are chosen as the parameters to evaluate the impact of thermal mass on building energy performance. In addition, the annual heating and cooling energy demands are selected as the measurement indices of building energy consumption. This article presents the results of the study, interprets them, and draws conclusions about the potential benefits of thermal mass for both residential and office occupancies, which are deemed to be important to researchers and design professionals. These results indicate that other influential design variables such as slab thickness and thermal mass distribution could also be taken into account to demonstrate broader implications and benefits of thermal mass in different climate zones.

Concrete has structural, architectural, and environmental applications in buildings. As one of its advantages, the thermal mass property of concrete plays an important role in a building's energy performance and reduces heating and cooling loads. In this paper, results of an investigation of the effect of thermal mass of concrete on a building's energy consumption in comparison with steel and masonry are presented. For the purpose of this research, three major parameters including height, occupancy, and location of buildings in six US climate zones were considered and maximum cooling load was chosen as the main measuring index of building energy performance. The results have shown that in residential and commercial buildings, the thermal mass property of concrete could reduce the maximum cooling load by 7% to 10%. Office and commercial buildings in Phoenix, AZ and residential buildings in Fargo, ND have shown the highest cooling load reduction of nearly 10% compared with other studied locations. Furthermore, as expected, concrete and masonry have exhibited better thermal mass performance than steel.

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Exterior Thermal Mass (eTM) is known to improve building energy and thermal comfort performance. Despite its known benefits, studies to date have not thoroughly addressed the effects of eTM on building environmental performance by considering a wide range of influential factors and various climatic conditions. This paper addresses such a gap in the body of knowledge by conducting a comprehensive and detailed analysis of eTM impacts on residential buildings’ energy performance. Using quantitative research and simulation analyses, this study has found various trends of energy reductions and, in a few cases, energy increases depending upon the location of projects. In fact, the cooling energies are shown to increase of up to 4% for the scenario of 20 cm thickness wall in several locations. Aiming for better energy and design load scenarios, this research has also established the optimal eTM depth to help architects and engineers make informed design decisions with regard to building envelopes, which is particularly important for developing countries with similar climates studied in this paper, where the use of masonry materials is widely common. As for future steps, further exploration of cooling energy increase phenomenon, which was observed for several climates is recommended. Also, coupling eTM with code-required thermal insulation based upon specific climatic locations and evaluate their integrated performance can be considered.