This work investigates the thermal performance of a typical building in Cyprus, and the effect of application of a particular passive technology (phase change material or PCM) with the aim of reducing indoor air temperatures and energy supplied for the cooling season. Phase change materials for passive building applications are an emerging technology and have not been tested for the buildings of Cyprus, either by computer simulation or practical application. In this paper, the effect of incorporating a phase change material wallboard with a phase change temperature of 26℃ was investigated by simulation in Energy Plus. Four scenarios were considered for the same building geometry, each having different constructions. Two construction styles were used: perforated clay brick walls with reinforced concrete slabs and cellular concrete block walls with cellular concrete slabs. Each construction style was used in two different thicknesses. Simulations were carried out for the city of Larnaca for the cooling season only (May–October). The results showed that with this particular phase change material product, indoor air temperatures and cooling energies supplied to the building could be reduced by up to 1.7℃ and 14.0%.
Practical application: Sensible heat storage in building fabric is usual practice in Cyprus, as traditional building materials are thermally heavy. This paper will have practical impact as it introduces application of PCMs, a new method for storing heat in the buildings of Cyprus in much lighter way, where the weight is significant constraint due to earthquake load.
This paper compares three sets of weather data for Cyprus and investigates the relationship between similarity of weather data and similarity of building heating and cooling loads. A building energy simulation weather file containing a year of hourly values of typical weather data for Larnaca was compared with 10 years of daily mean data (dry bulb temperature, global solar radiation, wind speed and relative humidity) for two other locations (Kyrenia and Nicosia). This was done by reducing the hourly data to daily mean values, generating the cumulative distribution functions of the three data sets and calculating the Finkelstein-Schafer statistics as a measure of similarity. It was found that the data for Larnaca were similar to that for Kyrenia and Nicosia, and most similar to that for Nicosia. The relationship between similarity of weather data, as measured by the Finkelstein-Schafer statistic, and the space heating and cooling loads of a simulated simple building was then investigated for some locations in the Mediterranean region. It was found that there was no apparent relationship between the Finkelstein-Schafer statistics and the total heating and cooling loads, but that there was a clear relationship between the Finkelstein-Schafer statistics and the heating and cooling loads considered separately. It is concluded that:. the Finkelstein-Schafer statistic is a useful measure of similarity when comparing weather data sets;. it is important to consider space heating and cooling loads separately, not just total load; . comparing weather data for Palermo, Cairo and Jerusalem with that for Larnaca, a smaller value of the FinkelsteinSchafer statistic is associated with more similar heating and cooling loads; . the Finkelstein-Schafer statistics are smaller for Kyrenia and Nicosia than for Palermo, Cairo and Jerusalem, so weather data for Larnaca can be considered for use in building energy simulation studies for Kyrenia and Nicosia.Practical application: There are many simulation weather data files available for different locations that can be used for dynamic thermal simulations of buildings. Yet, it is not practical to generate weather data file for every location. This work suggests that if a building energy simulation weather data set for a location is not available, then similar data for another location can be used, provided that FS statistic is small between the locations. This comparison has been performed for three locations in Cyprus in this work.
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