Evaluation of Thermal Effect of PCM Wallboards by Coupling Simplified Phase Change Model with Design Tool

Abstract

A simplified PCM wallboard model is coupled to an existing design-oriented model of multi-zone buildings. Using a reference model and a basic simulation configuration, the accuracy of the resulting PCM wallboard-building thermal design tool is evaluated. A new performance indicator, called PCM utilization factor, is then proposed in order to estimate the thermal efficiency of using PCM wallboards in buildings. Using this PCM Utilization factor and a degrees-hours indicator, the ability of the PCM wallboard-building thermal design tool to evaluate the effect of PCM wallboards on heating loads and summer thermal comfort in the early design phase of a project is examined in two real case studies: a family house project and an existing office building. The user-friendliness of this design tool, and the short calculation times it leads to when performing a year-long simulation using a standard office computer, make it a well-adapted tool for sensibility studies or multi-criterion optimization for buildings that contain PCM wallboards.

Applying phase-change energy storage in active distribution system planning

“…Furthermore, these storages have high energy densities compared to STS [2] [3] . In recent years, there are some researchers working on the topic of evaluation model for applying PCES [4]- [6] . In [4], a PCM utilization factor and corresponding design tool to evaluate the effect of PCM wallboards are proposed.…”

“…In recent years, there are some researchers working on the topic of evaluation model for applying PCES [4]- [6] . In [4], a PCM utilization factor and corresponding design tool to evaluate the effect of PCM wallboards are proposed. Using daytime solar energy for supplying heat for a building after storing energy by paraffin (one of PCM) is proved to be feasible in [5].…”

Liquid Crystals as Phase Change Materials for Thermal Stabilization

“…In order to simplify their numerical simulations, other studies [17,19,20] determined the temperature range where phase transition occurs. In this study, we assumed that phase transition is instant at one specific critical temperature .…”

“…We considered one-dimensional heat transfer through the planar surface of a two-layered composite (Figure 1) with one layer integrating homogeneously distributed PCMs. Our numerical model is based on the heat source approach [17][18][19][20], in which latent heat is modeled as an additional heat source. In terms of enthalpy (ℎ), the transient heat transfer equation in one dimension is expressed as…”