A Simple and Rigorous Method for the Determination of the Heat Requirements of Simple Intermittently Heated Exterior Walls

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Abstract
Buildings such as churches and auditoriums that are not continuously heated need larger heating plants than continuously heated buildings because of the large transient heat currents that must be supplied to the cold walls while the temperature of the building is being raised. The present unsatisfactory practice is to estimate the magnitude of these currents by various unreliable empirical methods. The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, for simple exterior walls, an equation is derived by means of which tables can be computed that will make rapid and reliable determinations possible. Second, the equation is put into such a form that the actual calculation of the tables can be carried out by N. Y. A. boys whose services can be obtained without cost. The unidirectional heat flow equation is solved for the boundary conditions that the outdoor temperature remains constant, the temperature of the wall is constant previous to time t=0, and after that time a constant heat current is applied to the wall. The solution is obtained in a form simple enough for the boys to handle by putting part of it in dimensionless form which makes it possible to plot a family of curves, which in turn make it possible to obtain numerical solutions without resorting to the very tedious ``cut and try'' process.

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