Simulation of latent heat thermal storage integrated with the room structures

abstract

English

The phase change of a material is accompanied with the release or absorption of a huge amount of heat. That makes the phase change a phenomenon effectively usable in various thermal storage applications. There is a number of materials with the melting temperature lying within the thermal comfort range for indoor environments. These materials can be used in building-integrated thermal storage. The performance of such latent heat thermal storage integrated with the room structures was investigated through numerical simulations and experiments. The studied case involved two adjacent rooms of the same dimensions. The hydrated-salt based phase change material (PCM) was used as a thermal storage medium. A comparative approach was adopted in which the internal structures of one of the rooms contained the PCM while the structures in the other room did not. The simulation model of the rooms was created in TRNSYS 17 and this model was coupled with a PCM model created in MATLAB. The enthalpy approach was used for the simulation of phase change. The adopted approach allowed for different time steps in the room model and the PCM model (the time step in the PCM model needed to be shorter). The data from the real scale experiments (ventilation rates, temperature of supply air, outdoor temperature, solar radiation intensity, etc.) as well as the physical properties of the PCM acquired in laboratory testing were used as inputs to the simulation models. The simulation results were compared to the experimentally obtained data and evaluated.

phase change materials, simulations

CHARVÁT, P.; MAUDER, T.; OSTRÝ, M.

22. 11. 2011

Institute of Metals and Technology

Lubljana

978-961-92518-4-3

93

93

1