作为修订ASHRAE基础知识手册总体计划的一部分，需要注意的领域之一是表III材料物理性质中比热的表格数据。现有表格中的许多材料不再用于建筑行业，而一些较新的材料则不包括在内。此外，现有的一些值可能对目前可用的新材料形式无效。为了修订和升级表中的数值，决定对大约80种广泛使用的建筑材料进行热容测定，包括各种隔热材料和各种形式的复合材料，选择单一方法作为所有人的连续项目，而不是选择不同工人使用不同方法和技术获得的不同材料的值。

As part of an overall programme to revise the ASHRAE book of fundamentals one of the areas requiring attention concerned tabulated data for specific heat in Table III Physical Properties of Materials. Many of the materials included in the existing table were no longer being used in the building industry while a number of newer materials were not included. Furthermore some of the existing values were possibly not valid for newer forms of the materials presently available.In order to revise and upgrade the values in the table it was decided to carry out determinations of heat capacity of some eighty widely used building materials including a broad range of thermal insulations materials and composites in various forms, A single method was chosen as a continuous project for all as opposed to selecting values for different materials which were obtained using various methods and techniques by different workers.