Massive storage walls as passive solar heating elements: An analytic model

A recently developed analytic method for the prediction of the long-term thermal performance of passively-heated solar houses is applied to massive storage wall houses. Our method provides closed-form analytic expressions for the same performance variables that have until now been obtained via large-scale computer simulations. Agreement with published numerical simulation results is satisfactory. The adequacy of representing the heat diffusion through a massive storage wall by a one-node model for the calculation of the long-term thermal performance is demonstrated for the range of wall thicknesses of practical interest. The method is not restricted to a "reference" house. Consequently we predict in closed form the effect on the house's solar heating fraction of varying different building and climatic parameters.