Analysis of the thermal behavior of hollow bricks walls filled with PCM: Effect of PCM location

Abstract

The drastic heat waves intensified by climate change have urged the cooling demand in the building sector. Therefore, thermal comfort in buildings has become a significant energy consumption issue. The building envelope is the primary separator between the conditioned indoor and the unconditioned outdoor environments of the building. This physical separator controls energy exchange and balances the storage capacity of the building. Thermal energy storage can be enhanced using Phase change materials (PCMs). Hence, using these materials can improve the thermal mass of building envelopes. This paper investigated the energy performance of the hollow brick wall filled with phase change materials. It inspected PCM’s behavior by analyzing the impact of PCM placement in a double wall of hollow bricks. In this regard, four PCM positions in hollow bricks were numerically studied in a warm climate city. The results demonstrated the possibility of filling blocks with PCM in selected locations instead of filling the entire brick. Regarding energy savings, the phase change material in locations 3 and 4 saves up to 97% of the energy required to maintain internal thermal comfort at a set temperature of 26 °C.

Keywords

• Phase change materials
• Phase change materials location effect
• Cooling needs reduction
• Buildings energy-savings
• Low-energy buildings