Summary Report: Development of a New ASTM Standard Test Method for Phase Change Materials

Government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency thereof. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency thereof. PREFACE Materials used for thermal insulation and storage, along with other construction and building envelope components, are subjected to transient thermal conditions which can include dynamically changing temperature, moisture content, surface heat transfer, specific heat, etc. In addition, most building design and energy-related standards are based on a steady-state criterion (R-values using the apparent thermal conductivity measurements). This mismatch between the steady-state principles used in design and code requirements and the dynamic operation of buildings can result in lower thermal efficiency than achievable or higher cost (due to addition of more insulation than required). This mismatch can also lead to a gross underestimation of the performance of materials that store energy under cyclic temperature conditions, for example phase change materials (PCM). Although some experimental methods for transient analysis of building envelopes have been developed, there are no standardized testing procedures available to quantitatively characterize materials and systems under dynamic conditions. Data on dynamic material characteristics are needed to improve thermal design and analysis, whole-building simulations, and energy code-related work. This led to the development of a proposed ASTM Standard Test Method for characterizing PCM products under dynamic conditions.