Panel heating and cooling systems use controlled temperature surfaces in the floor, walls, or ceiling of a conditioned space. The temperature is maintained by a circulating fluid through a circuit embedded in the panel. Heat transfer occurs by radiation and convection to or from a room. The performance of these systems may be determined by design calculations or testing. Thermal testing and system analysis by experiments are costly and inefficient. For different closed panel systems, finite element-based models and programs were developed by which temperature distribution in the construction, interdependence between performance and mean carrier fluid temperature, panel surface temperature, and room temperature can be calculated. One single power function product of all relevant parameters has been derived as an algorithm for performance calculations of panel heating and cooling systems, which can be adapted for other systems. Findings have been verified by experiment for floor heating panels with best results. These basic equations provided the design standards for German Standard DIN 4725, "Thermal Output of Floor Heating," which has been adopted as European Standard EN 1264. Finite element method calculation results were also compared with results from design calculations based on the ASHRAE method.Units: SI