Finite element analyses using COMSOL have been carried out to study the heat transfer behavior and storing capacity of concrete walls with air cavities, and to explore the possibility of using one-layer and two-layer one-dimensional models with equivalent thermal conductivity and mass density to represent the effect of concrete walls with air cavities in a building energy simulation. Three typical wall geometries were chosen and both stationary and transient analyses have been carried out. The stationary analyses were performed first to find the equivalent thermal conductivity which was further used in the transient analyses to fit the equivalent mass density. Because of the presence of air cavities the equivalent thermal conductivities are always smaller than the bulk thermal conductivity. However, for the one-layer model an exaggerated equivalent mass density as high as two times the bulk density should be used in order to simulate the heat storing capacity of the concrete walls with air cavities. The values of the fitted equivalent mass density are strongly dependent on the wall thickness. (c) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.