Parametric analysis of thermal behavior of the building with phase change materials for passive cooling

ABSTRACT

This paper assesses the parametric analysis of thermal behavior of the building walls incorporated with phase change material (PCM). Two identical cubicles-one with PCM and another one without PCM are constructed and the thermal response of all the walls and roof of both the cubicles are studied for the climatic conditions of Chennai, India. The results indicated that the maximum temperature of all the walls and roof of the experimental cubicle with PCM is reduced to around 3°C to 4°C vis-à-vis the reference cubicle without PCM. Experimental results from the cubicle with PCM confirmed a significant reduction in an overall heat flux about 28.8%, a decrease in thermal amplitude around 46.05% to 65.63% including a drop in maximum temperature by 9.01% to 11.3% at different sides of the walls. Therefore, the transmission of heat energy from the outside ambient to the room interior in hot climatic conditions can be greatly reduced due to the great impact by incorporating the PCM. The dynamic thermal characteristics of the cubicles are evaluated by means of the parameters, namely, temperature time lag and decrement factor. The experimental cubicle showed 60 to 120 minutes of time delay in reaching the peak temperature and decrement factor of about 0.4. These results confirm the decrease in the cooling load and hence the reduction in energy consumption for achieving thermal comfort inside the building.

KEYWORDS:

• Phase change materials
• energy savings
• thermal energy storage
• macro-encapsulation
• thermal comfort
• passive cooling

Nomenclature

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Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interest.

Additional information

Funding

The authors acknowledge that there are no external funding/grants received for this research work.

Notes on contributors

Surulivel Rajan T

Mr. Surulivel rajan T is an Assistant Professor in the Prince Shri Venkateshwara Padmavathy Engineering College, Chennai, India and is also pursuing doctoral research at Anna University, Chennai, India. He has more than sixteen years of teaching experience. His areas of interest  include thermal storage, computational fluid dynamics, and energy applications.

Geetha N.B.

Dr. Geetha N.B has more than twenty years of experience in and research and has coordinated several programs in the field of energy engineering. Her areas of interest include energy efficient buildings, heat transfer, heat exchanger, and computational fluid dynamics.

Rajkumar S

Dr. S. Rajkumar has twenty years of teaching and research and seven years of industry experiences. His area of research include engine combustion and emission modelling, alternate fuels and thermal energy storage systems.