Design Solution · HVAC & Energy
Design Solution · Dream about it
Chilled beams plus chilled-slab thermal mass cooling.
Passive chilled beams are combined with a thermally activated building structure, where chilled water in the slab uses the concrete mass to absorb load and shift peaks. Coupling beams with slab cooling smooths demand and lets plant run at higher, more efficient water temperatures.
Combining passive chilled beams with thermally activated building structure (TABS) — chilled water circulated through pipes cast in the concrete slab — layers two thermal mass strategies: the slab absorbs radiant and convective heat through the occupied day using its thermal capacity, while the beams handle residual convective cooling at ceiling level. The combination allows the chilled water to run at higher temperatures than conventional cooling systems, which directly improves heat-pump coefficient of performance and allows free-cooling hours to extend, materially improving plant efficiency. This is a sophisticated system that demands integrated structural, services and controls design from the earliest stage — the slab pipework must be coordinated before the structure is cast and cannot be modified afterwards, and the control logic for pre-cooling the slab overnight and managing beam water temperatures during occupation is non-trivial. No deployment evidence is on record. The principal risk for a specifier is inflexibility: TABS is essentially irreversible once cast, and if occupancy patterns or internal loads change significantly over the building's life, the system's pre-cooling strategy may need extensive re-commissioning rather than simply reprogramming.
#TABS #thermal mass #chilled beam