Abstract. Closed cell aluminium foam samples and panels with phase change material (PCM) infiltrated in vacuum were investigated. The utilization of PCMs in larger volumes is strongly limited because of its low thermal conductivity in liquid state. However, porous structure of aluminium foam allows to absorb or to dissipate very homogenously latent heat at almost constant temperature if PCMs with phase change at the temperature range between 4°C and 28 °C are used inside of foam. Therefore the degree of filling of closed cell aluminium foams with PCM material was investigated. It was shown that it is possible to fill sufficient amount of pores with PCM. Further, aluminium foam panels with PCM were tested for heating/cooling applications in buildings. It was confirmed, that such foam panels provide an excellent alternative for large built-in ceiling radiators for efficient heating or cooling of rooms using low potential energy resources. These features of foam panels allow significantly reduce energy consumption of heating/air conditioning systems of future zero energy buildings.

The article focuses on the issue of heat treatment. The cooling curves were obtained for Isorapid 277HM with an experimental way of temperature measuring and their statistical processing. Experimental method was consistent with the test normative ISO standard 9950 (Wolfson's test). The cooling oil Isorapid 277HM was agitated with different agitation work and had a constant temperature of 50 °C. In the next part of this article the surface temperature depended combined heat transfers were calculated. The methodology was based on inverse heat transfer. The interpretation code was software ANSYS and ORIGIN.

The capability periodically to store and release the latent heat of phase transition during melting and solidification of Phase Change Materials (PCMs) has been currently the main subject of interest with regard to cost reduction efforts for cooling, heating of interiors and Domestic Hot Water (DHW) necessary for the operation and maintenance of adequate thermal comfort in new modern as well as old renovated residential buildings. The main principle of PCMs facilities to reduce significantly the energy consumption in the building industry of the future is based on the ability of thermo-active heat exchangers to absorb and later to dissipate into the surroundings excessive heat which can be easily obtained from renewable sources (e.g. solar energy, geothermal heat, etc.) directly in a building or in its immediate vicinity. Smart interior tiling and furnishing systems can provide high energy efficiency by stabilizing the room temperature at a level ensuring sufficient thermal comfort basically governed by the thermal conductivity and heat exchange area between ceiling (respectively also wall and floor if necessary) heat exchangers (radiators) and the heat storage medium in the form of PCMs. Unfortunately, most conventional building materials, e.g. aerated concrete, bricks, gypsum, ceramic tiles, etc. are particularly characterized by very low thermal conductivity, which disadvantages them to be used for these purposes. However, highly porous metallic material such as aluminium foam prepared by powder metallurgy [10, 11] is on the contrary excellently heat conductive, which predisposes it to be used for light-weight design of supporting structure of very energy efficient indoor as well as outdoor thermo-active heat exchangers for building industry of the future. This contribution points to the possibility to apply aluminium foam for both the novel innovative roofing system to cover pitched roofs and the interior ceiling panels, with the minimum energy demands for maintaining the sufficient thermal comfort in future nearly Zero-Energy Buildings (nZEBs).

A die setup for direct hot extrusion of extra-short aluminium alloys billets used in semi-pilot plant tests was simulated using DEFORM ™ 2D/3D software and results were compared with experiment. A die setup without welding chamber proved to shorten charge-weld to such extend that most of material could be recovered as usable samples. Having good agreement between simulated and experimental results of two tested die setups (with and without welding chamber) the effect of temperature on length of charge-weld was evaluated. A main drawback of die setup without welding chamber is too short and, consequently, too week charge-weld. Since many extruded profiles need to be stretched after cooling, die setup without welding chamber is not applicable for commercial production. Application of die setup without -or with shallowwelding chamber is limited to flat profiles with simple and symmetrical geometry like round or rectangular bars where mixing of extruded material is not crucial for the profiles properties.

This paper presents the thermal behavior of ZrB2 skeletal material (38% porosity) infiltrated with pure Cu or CuCrZr alloy. Gas-assisted pressure infiltration technology was used to prepare the composites. Thermal diffusivity, density and specific heat measurements were used to calculate the thermal conductivity—the room temperature values of the Cu-ZrB2 and the CuCrZr-ZrB2 material were 157 W m−1 K−1 and 146 W m−1 K−1, respectively, and they decreased with increasing temperature. Analysis of the results showed significant influence of the interface on the thermal conductivity of the CuCrZr-ZrB2 composite. The results indicate that the improved interfacial conductivity was formed due to the presence of the Zr in both the copper alloy and the ceramic skeleton. During infiltration, Zr atoms diffused from the liquid metal to the interface between the metal and the matrix. Here, they created a layer that had metal-related properties. The layer improved wettability of the interface and at the same time the thermal conductivity of the whole composite. The values were compared with the data of the Cu–graphite composite made by the powder metallurgical route where heat transfer through the interface approaches zero. Obtained experimental data were analyzed using the Differential Effective Media (DEM) technique, showing high thermal conductance of the interface between the CuCrZr metal matrix and ceramic skeleton.