New EAACA Tool “AAC heat-wave” released:

Building in summer – what actually matters?

Recent summer heat periods have made one thing clear: buildings need to become more resilient to overheating. This is not only a question of solar shading or air-conditioning. Summer comfort starts with the construction itself.

A suitable wall build-up can delay heat peaks, reduce the intensity of an external heat wave and temporarily store heat. The challenge is to find a good balance between thermal mass and thermal insulation.

The new EAACA AAC heat-wave Tool makes these effects visible and comparable.

It shows:

• how much of the outside heat wave reaches the room side
  calculated as: periodic thermal transmittance |Y₁₂|
• how strongly the heat wave is reduced
  calculated as: decrement factor f and amplitude damping 1/f
• how many hours the heat wave is delayed
  calculated as: time shift / time delay of the temperature wave
• how much heat the construction can temporarily store
  calculated as: internal and external areal heat capacity χ₁ and χ₂
• how different wall build-ups compare
  based on the calculated dynamic thermal indicators according to EN ISO 13786

Users can load example constructions, create their own wall build-ups, adjust material values and compare different solutions directly — from monolithic AAC walls to insulated multilayer systems and simplified inhomogeneous constructions.

The tool provides a transparent first assessment for technical discussion and early design comparison. It does not replace detailed building simulation, but it helps users understand why summer performance depends on more than the U-value.

Open AAC heat-wave Tool

https://eaaca.org/tools/heat-wave/

Explore how wall thickness, material choice, insulation position and thermal mass influence summer thermal behaviour.