Thermal Behavior of a Building with Incorporated Phase Change Materials in the South and the North Wall

Abstract

Energy consumption in the building sector is responsible for a very large amount of electricity consumption worldwide. The reduction of this consumption is a crucial issue in order to achieve sustainability. The objective of this work is to investigate the use of phase change materials (PCMs) in the building walls in order to reduce the heating and the cooling loads. The novelty of this work is based on the investigation of different scenarios about the position of the PCM layer in the south and the north walls. PCMs can improve the thermal performance and the thermal comfort of a building due to their ability to store large amounts of thermal energy in latent form and so to reduce the temperature fluctuations of the structural components, keeping them within the desired temperature levels. More specifically, this work presents and compares the heating loads, the cooling loads and the temperature distribution of a building in Athens (Greece), with and without PCMs in different positions in the south wall and in the north walls. The simulation is performed with the commercial software TRNSYS 17, using the TRNSYS component: type 1270 (PCM Wall). The results proved that the maximum energy savings per year were achieved by the combination of the insulation and the PCM layer in the north and south walls. More specifically, the reductions in the heating and the cooling loads were found to be 1.54% and 5.90%, respectively. Furthermore, the temperature distribution with the use of a PCM layer is the most acceptable, especially during the summer period.

A short review on passive strategies applied to minimise the building cooling loads in hot locations

“…Phase change materials (PCMs) are materials that can store and release a considerable amount of heat in a latent form (in addition to the sensible form) within a relatively stable temperature called phase change/transition temperature [35] [36]. PCMs have proved to control the heat through the building envelope by acting as a heat barrier under hot locations, resulting in an essential building thermal comfort and energy saving [37,38]. The working principle of PCMs is that the heat accumulated during the day is restricted and stored in a latent form (which is huge in these materials) and then released during the nighttime [39].…”