Sinusoidal response measurement procedure for the thermal performance assessment of PCM by means of dynamic heat flow meter apparatus

Abstract The implementation, in Building Performance Simulations (BPS) tools, of robust models capable of simulating the thermophysical behaviour of a Phase Change Material (PCM) represents a fundamental step for an appropriate thermal evaluation of buildings that adopt PCM-enhanced envelope components. Reliable and robust measuring procedures are essential, at a material and component level, to provide experimental data for the empirical validation of software tools. The traditional laboratory tests that are generally used for the validation of models present some limitations, because PCMs are usually subjected to conditions that may be very different from the real boundary conditions of the building components in which PCMs are applied. Furthermore, in many experimental full-scale mockups, the relatively small quantity of installed PCM and the combination of several thermal phenomena do not allow software tools to be tested in a reliable way. In this paper, an experimental procedure, based on a modified Heat Flow Meter Apparatus, has been developed to test the behaviour of PCM-enhanced components; the procedure, which is based on the measurement of the sinusoidal response, has been set up to provide data for the comparison and testing of numerical models and of BPS tools. Moreover, general indications and guidelines are provided to solve some issues related to building specimens that contain bulk PCM in order to obtain a more accurate measurement of their performance. The experimental results presented in this paper were obtained from two different bulk PCMs (organic and inorganic). It was found that it is important to evaluate different PCM typologies and different thermophysical boundary conditions, including partial and full phase transitions, to test simulation codes that implement PCM modelling functions. In fact, some phenomena, such as hysteresis and subcooling effects are more evident when partial phase transition takes place. The results related to the characterization of the thermal conductivity of a paraffin-based PCM have shown a significant increase (up to 42%) of the equivalent thermal conductivity from a solid to a liquid state, with an upward heat flux, thus highlighting that further investigations and improvements are needed to measure the equivalent thermal conductivity in the different PCM phases.

[1]  M. R. Mitchell,et al.  Hot-Box Testing of Building Envelope Assemblies—A Simplified Procedure for Estimation of Minimum Time of the Test , 2008 .

[2]  Mario A. Medina,et al.  Phase-Change Frame Walls (PCFWs) for Peak Demand Reduction, Load Shifting, Energy Conservation and Comfort , 2008 .

[3]  Sam Behzadi,et al.  COMPUTER SIMULATION AND EXPERIMENTAL MEASURMENTS FOR AN EXPERIMENTAL PCM-IMPREGNATED OFFICE BUILDING , 2011 .

[4]  Luisa F. Cabeza,et al.  Modeling phase change materials behavior in building applications: Comments on material characterization and model validation , 2012 .

[5]  Valentina Serra,et al.  Experimental Analysis of an External Dynamic Solar Shading Integrating PCMs: First Results , 2015 .

[6]  Arild Gustavsen,et al.  The Effect of Wall-Integrated Phase Change Material Panels on the Indoor Air and Wall Temperature - Hot box Experiments , 2010 .

[7]  Valentina Serra,et al.  Energy Assessment of A Pcm–Embedded Plaster: Embodied Energy Versus Operational Energy☆ , 2015 .

[8]  Mario A. Medina,et al.  A Comparative Heat Transfer Examination of Structural Insulated Panels (SIPs) With and Without Phase Change Materials (PCMs) Using a Dynamic Wall Simulator , 2008 .

[9]  Joseph Virgone,et al.  Experimental investigation of wallboard containing phase change material: Data for validation of numerical modeling , 2009 .

[10]  Marco Perino,et al.  Estimation of the thermal properties of PCMs through inverse modelling , 2015 .

[11]  Ernesto Benini,et al.  Experimental and numerical analyses on thermal performance of different typologies of PCMs integrated in the roof space , 2017 .

[12]  Valentina Serra,et al.  Energy assessment of a novel dynamic PCMs based solar shading: results from an experimental campaign , 2017 .

[13]  Jan Kośny,et al.  PCM-Enhanced Building Components , 2015 .

[14]  Francesco Goia,et al.  Modeling and experimental validation of an algorithm for simulation of hysteresis effects in phase change materials for building components , 2018 .

[15]  J. Vinha,et al.  Measuring thermal conductivity and specific heat capacity values of inhomogeneous materials with a heat flow meter apparatus , 2017 .

[16]  L. Cabeza,et al.  Determination of enthalpy?temperature curves of phase change materials with the temperature-history method: improvement to temperature dependent properties , 2003 .

[17]  Frank P. Incropera,et al.  Fundamentals of Heat and Mass Transfer , 1981 .

[18]  Luisa F. Cabeza,et al.  Use of microencapsulated PCM in concrete walls for energy savings , 2007 .

[19]  Joseph Virgone,et al.  Optimization of a Phase Change Material Wallboard for Building Use , 2008 .

[20]  D. W. Yarbrough,et al.  Dynamic Heat Flow Measurements to Study the Distribution of Phase-Change Material in an Insulation Matrix , 2010 .

[21]  T. Petrie,et al.  Thermal Performance of PCM-Enhanced Building Envelope Systems , 1995 .

[22]  Zhang Yinping,et al.  A simple method, the -history method, of determining the heat of fusion, specific heat and thermal conductivity of phase-change materials , 1999 .

[23]  Joseph Virgone,et al.  Development and validation of a new TRNSYS type for the simulation of external building walls containing PCM , 2010 .

[24]  Luisa F. Cabeza,et al.  Experimental study of using PCM in brick constructive solutions for passive cooling , 2010 .

[25]  J. Kośny,et al.  DHFMA Method for Dynamic Thermal Property Measurement of PCM-integrated Building Materials , 2015 .

[26]  M. E. Navarro,et al.  Effect of microencapsulated phase change material in sandwich panels , 2010 .

[27]  Mohammed M. Farid,et al.  Use of Phase Change Materials for Thermal Comfort and Electrical Energy Peak Load Shifting: Experimental Investigations , 2008 .