Mass timber products, together with careful forestry management, could help decarbonize the construction industry. These products must be long-lasting, to safely store atmospheric carbon for decades or centuries, and multi-functional, to displace materials and equipment that are emissions-intensive. This paper shows how to optimize mass timber panels as heat-exchangers, suggesting how to eliminate insulation while simplifying HVAC systems. Test panels measured the heat-exchange in steady and transient conditions, when the ventilation was driven by a fan or by thermal buoyancy. The total heat transfer was predicted accurately by theory in all cases. Further investigation is needed to understand the possible heat-recovery effects at the exterior surface.

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Mass timber products, together with careful forestry management, could help decarbonize the construction industry. These products must be long-lasting, to safely store atmospheric carbon for decades or centuries, and multi-functional, to displace materials and equipment that are emissions-intensive. This paper shows how to optimize mass timber panels as heat-exchangers, suggesting how to eliminate insulation while simplifying HVAC systems. Test panels measured the heat-exchange in steady and transient conditions, when the ventilation was driven by a fan or by thermal buoyancy. The total heatexchange was predicted accurately by theory in all cases. Further investigation is needed to understand the possible heat-recovery effects at the exterior surface.

Mass timber panels could be designed as heat exchangers for use in building envelopes. Fresh air, drawn through geometrically optimized channels in the panel, is pre-tempered with building heat that would otherwise be lost to the exterior via conduction. Recent experiments have shown that timber heat exchanging panels can approach U ~0.1 W/m2K – but there are potential limitations. The sizing correlations which predict panel geometry and steady heat exchange must be numerically calibrated for building-scale contexts, the heat-exchange efficiency must be verified virtually, and practical thresholds for transient response time must be determined. This study uses numerical simulations to investigate these factors for one design ‘case’ of timber panels, and establishes a methodology for studies of further cases.