Thermal analysis of phase change material board (PCMB) under weather conditions in the summer

D. Zhou, Y. Tian, Y. Qu, Y.k. Chen

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Phase Change Material Board (PCMB) has been considered as an effective way to improve the thermal comfort in either new or existing buildings. In this work, firstly the optimal melting temperatures of internal and external PCMB are given, and the optimal heat storage capacities are obtained under the idealised circumstance of considering sinusoidal changes of the room and outdoor temperatures during a day. Secondly, to study the potential energy saving from applying a PCMB, a case study of a lightweight office with real environmental conditions is carried out. The air conditioning is switched on in the model to keep the indoor temperature within thermal comfort. Using the daily energy consumption and daily thermal comfort rate as the performance criteria, the effects of major influencing factors including melting temperature, latent heat and thermal conductivity of PCMB are studied parametrically. The results show that both the external and internal PCMB can achieve better performance when the melting temperature is chosen to be slightly higher than the average indoor air temperature. In the summer, the external PCMB has a better performance than the internal PCMB because the external PCMB works not only as a heat storage system whose function is similar to the internal PCMB, but also as a thermal connection between the outdoor and indoor environment due to its thermal insulation function, which reduces the influence of the changing outdoor environment.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)690-702
JournalApplied Thermal Engineering
Volume99
Early online date3 Feb 2016
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 25 Apr 2016

Bibliographical note

Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd.

Funding: University of Hertfordshire through their Researchers Development Fund and Strategic Scientific Equipment Award (Grant No: 11.100824), the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council of the UK (EPSRC Grant No: EP/F061439/1), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC Grant No: 51206189). Henry Lester Trust and the Great Britain-China Centre for partial financial support.

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