Experimental study of a modified solar phase change material storage wall system

Abstract Aiming at satisfying demands of buildings in hot summer and cold winter regions, this work proposed a dual-channel and thermal-insulation-in-the-middle type solar phase change material storage wall system. The system has four independent functions: passive solar heating, heat preservation, heat insulation, and passive cooling, and it can agilely cope with requirements of climatization of buildings in different seasons throughout the year. The analysis of measured data from comparative tests on a hot-box test platform, shows that in summer, the daily average temperatures in the experimental room are 29.8 °C, 30.9 °C and 31.0 °C respectively, while those in the reference room are 29.6 °C, 30.7 °C and 30.8 °C, and thereby the difference is small. The south-facing wall with solar collector module shows reduction in peak temperature and delay phenomenon compared with that without solar collector module. These aspects highlighted by the results together indicate that effective prevention from summer overheating problem can be achieved by this system. In winter, by comparison with the ambient temperatures and those of the reference room, the air temperatures in the experimental room, both its maximum and average, raise greatly showing good heating effect. In addition, some distinct thermal characteristics of the system operated in summer or winter are obtained.