Evaluating Experimental Methods for Measuring the Specific Heat Capacity of Building Materials

This paper compares three experimental methods for measuring the specific heat capacity of building materials. Many new and emerging building materials do not have well measured and published specific heat capacities which hinders modelling accuracy. Several methods exist for measuring the specific heat capacity of materials, but many traditional methods are not appropriate for certain building materials. In this study the specific heat capacity of four common building materials was measured using a heat flow meter (HFM), a guarded hot plate (GHP) with heat flux sensors and a convective analysis tool (CAT). The HFM method produced results with the lowest experimental uncertainty, but required uniform, solid rectangular samples to conduct the testing and thus not applicable for use with non-rectangular samples. For materials that are either not a solid, or cannot be formed into rectangular, uniform samples, the CAT is the preferred method for determining the material’s heat capacity.