International audienceThe present paper is the first comprehensive review of the integration of phase change materials in building walls. Many considerations are discussed in this paper including physical considerations about building envelope and phase change material, phase change material integration and thermophysical property measurements and various experimental and numerical studies concerning the integration. Even if the integrated phase change material have a good potential for reducing energy demand, further investigations are needed to really assess their use

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International audienceIn building construction, the use of phase change materials (PCMs) allows the storage/release of energy from the solar radiation and/or internal loads. The application of such materials for lightweight construction (e.g., a wood house) makes it possible to improve thermal comfort and reduce energy consumption. However, in order to assess and optimize phase change materials included in building wall, numerical simulation is mandatory. For that purpose, a new TRNSYS Type, named Type 260, is developed to model the thermal behavior of an external wall with PCM. This model is presented in this paper and validated using experimental data from the literature

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In order to really assess the potential of Phase Change Material (PCM) wallboards, a renovated office building has been monitored during approximatively one year. A room was equipped with PCM wallboards in the lateral walls and in the ceiling. Another room, identical to the first one, was not equipped but also monitored. This study is the first one dealing with the results obtained in real use conditions. Some relevant results of this monitoring are presented in order to understand the physical phenomena involved in the walls storage process. The results show that the PCM wallboards enhance the thermal comfort of occupants due to air temperature and radiative effects of the walls.

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Study about magnesium sulfatewater vapor equilibrium proved to be very interesting especially on the use of dehydration-hydration reactions for the heat storage application in recent research. Heat is realized by hydration of lower hydrates as this reaction is exothermic. Therefore, reversible reaction, endothermic thermal dehydration of higher hydrates, is used for charging of system and in this state the energy can be stored over long time. Even if magnesium sulfate appears as promising candidate with high theoretical energy density of 2.8 GJ/m-3 , technological process is rather complicated. The main problem that thermodynamic and kinetic data are poorly understood to present. In these study salt hydrates equilibrium of magnesium sulfate was investigated by new approach. It makes possible to understand the dehydration reaction of MgSO 4 •6H 2 O for heat storage application. Dehydration reaction under various water vapor pressures and temperatures were investigated by thermogravimetric analysis. The result showed that water content in the solid phase is a function of temperature for given water vapor pressure. So, we can conclude that this magnesium sulfatewater vapor system is bivariant and some hydrates appear as the non-stoichiometric hydrates.