Thermal inertia properties of autoclaved aerated concrete

Autoclaved aerated concrete (AAC) is a lightweight, porous concrete with ad vanced thermal properties. AAC is unique among construction materials in co mbining excellent thermal resistance and thermal inertia. Generally, low-de nsity construction materials do not provide good thermal inertia, while hea vier ones commonly have poor thermal resistance. Five different 10.2 cm (4 in.) AAC samples made from U.S. electric utility fly ash as the silica sour ce, along with three 10.2 cm (4 in.) conventional building material specime ns, were tested for thermal inertia properties. Three primary issues addres sed by these experiments were: (1) to develop and compare AAC thermal inert ia to conventional building materials; (2) to document differences in therm al inertia characteristics of the AAC blocks produced by the various utilit ies; and (3) to determine if a periodic heat how model using the thermal in ertia approach adequately predicts the observed thermal inertia parameters of a material. A theoretical periodic heat how model in the literature for thermal inertia did an adequate job of predicting the observed thermal iner tia parameters for the AAC and conventional construction samples.