Experimental Thermal Response Study of Multilayered, Encapsulated, PCM-Integrated Building Construction Materials

Abstract

Thermal energy storage integration using phase change materials (PCMs) in buildings has great potential for energy conservation and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction. Cutting-edge research and innovative ideas are required when using multilayered PCMs within typical construction materials to take advantage of their heat storage capability over a wide temperature range within buildings. This current study was carried out to experimentally test the efficacy of using dual PCMs RT28HC and RT21HC with different melting temperature ranges (28 °C and 21 °C) under variable thermal loading. The transient thermal response of various PCM-based configurations of concrete and cement blocks at different temperature inputs was obtained to determine the effectiveness of dual PCMs and their optimized configuration under experimental laboratory conditions. The range of the temperature input was varied from 22 °C to 50 °C, suitable for hot climatic conditions such as those in Pakistan. Laboratory ambient temperatures remained at ~17 °C for all experimental tests. Moreover, the results were compared using two parameters, i.e., decrement factor (DF) and time lag (TL). With DF and TL values of 0.10 and 5.72, respectively, in the high-temperature heating (HTH) regime and a low DF value of 0.08 and high TL of 5.17 in the moderate-temperature heating (MTH) regime, the RT28HC–RT21HC combination proved to be the most effective. The application of the RT28HC–RT21HC combination provided up to a 54.3% reduction in indoor temperatures in the HTH regime. This research contributes through experimental validation that these novel configurations are capable of providing substantial improvement in indoor thermal comfort.

Keywords

• phase change material (PCM)
• thermal energy storage (TES)
• building construction material
• thermal analysis
• experimental investigation
• convective heating and cooling