Methodology for analyzing thermal responses in buildings. Proposal and application

Thermal evaluation of buildings involves differentvariables and parameters. The differentmodels of thermal analysis and evaluation ofbuildings vary depending on the input dataneeded, the mathematical models used, the accuracyof results and the scope of the evaluation.A phenomenological global approach is apossibility for simplifying detailed models consideringspecific purposes, i.e. improving thermalcharacteristics for retrofitting.In previous works, a simple method was proposedto describe the global thermal response ofbuildings through measured data from outdoortemperature and solar radiation, obtaining agood description of the indoor temperature inbuildings. In this work, we extend the previousmethod in order to incorporate in the analysisthe effects of outdoor relative humidity. Thisdynamical analysis is carried out in the frequencydomain. The typical amplitude patternsobtained from the thermal responses give an approximatedcharacterization of the building behaviourat each frequency.When the building behaviour is analyzed underdifferent climatic conditions, it is shown thathumidity and solar radiation are complementaryvariables to outdoor temperature, able to improvethe description of the thermal responseunder the same climatic conditions. Howeverthe main result of this contribution is that solarradiation and humidity are not able to characterizethe thermal behaviour under different seasonalconditions. Only the outdoor temperatureis a relevant variable for calculating a responsethat can characterize completely the globalthermal behaviour of the buildings all yeararound.