Modelación y simulación de la transferencia de calor en muros de bloque de concreto hueco

This paper presents a heat transfers study in a hollow concrete blocks wall to know its thermal resistance. A one dimensional steady-state model was developed, which includes conduction, radiation and convection. The model was solved numerically using Gauss-Seidel iterative method. The simulation was run hourly for two days in climatic extreme conditions. The thermal resistance average value obtained was 0.18 °Cm²/W with variations of 2.3% to 23%. The average contribution to the total heat flow for every transfer mechanism is: 25%, 19% and 56% by conduction, convection and radiation respectively. The wall presents thermal resistance values which tend to decrease with the increase of temperature differential. This aspect presents disadvantages for thermal behavior in warm climate and the radiation into the block cavity is the most important heat transfer process across the wall.