A new approach to the determination of specific heat capacity of cement-based materials was proposed based on the composition and structure of hardened concrete,rather than the weighted average of the raw materials.The specific heat capacity of unhydrated cement particles and hardened cement paste were measured by differential scanning calorimetry(DSC),which is essential to study the thermal property of cement-based materials.The experimental data of unhydrated cement particles and hardened cement paste revealed the accuracy of DSC measurement.The specific heat capacity of concrete was calculated using the model proposed,good correlativity is achieved when compared with the results by standard method.Multifactor model,which takes consideration of moisture content,porosity and pore structure,could be useful to get more accurate and reasonable result.