An experimental investigation of the south wall of building integrated with phase change material

This study, the annual performance of a new generation Trombe wall in which solar energy is stored as latent heat is experimentally investigated. For this purpose, a test room is built and the south wall of a test room is designed as Trombe wall having Phase Change Material (i.e., PCM wall). The PCM wall made of, from inside to outside, insulation, brick, plaster in which encapsulated PCM is buried, air gap and novel designed Transparent Insulation Material (TIM). Data such as solar radiation, temperature, flow rate of circulation air, electric consumption are measured and recorded via data acquisition system to analyses the thermal and optical performance of the PCM wall. After analyzing the experimental data, proper melting temperature for the PCM is determined, the diurnal, monthly and annual variation of the performance parameters such as, the ratio of the solar energy benefit to heat load of the room, overall efficiency of the wall, solar transmittance of the TIM are analyzed. The ratio of energy benefit of PCM wall to heat load of test room is determined as 70,4%, 40,8%, and 14,2% for October, November and December of the year 2008, respectively and 9,4%, 11,3% and 4,3% for January, February and March of the year 2009, respectively. The overall efficiency of the GR35 PCM wall is higher than that of GR41 PCM wall. It is concluded that higher melting temperature of PCM results in lower overall efficiency. It is determined that solar transmittance of TIM varies between 0,45 to 0,55 in the winter season and 0,18 to 0,2 in summer season.