On an experimental innovative setup for the macro scale thermal analysis of materials: Application to the Phase Change Material (PCM) wallboards

• An experimental setup to characterize the thermal properties of materials in macro-scale.
• Easy and fast experiment to evaluate the specific heat capacity of materials.
• The energy balance equation gives easily the thermal signature of the bench itself.
• The bench test was approved on a “school” case (steel plates) and used for PCM panels.
• A good correlation was found by comparison with DSC test and mixture law approach.

This work deals with the assessment of a novel experimental methodology to investigate the thermal storage properties of materials in “macro” scale. The experimental device developed in the present research was used for the thermal characterization of wallboards containing Phase Change Materials labeled “PCM wallboards”. In general, PCM wallboards can contribute to the improvement of the thermal comfort and the energy saving when integrated in the building envelope. In this study, the developed experimental device operates in convection mode without need to sophisticated accessories. First, several “blank” tests were performed with different scenarios of temperatures and air flows. This step was useful to determine the thermal signature of the experimental device and especially the thermal losses occurring during the heat transfer. Then, a validation step was achieved on a “school case” using steel panels with known thermal properties. It was shown that the relative specific heat obtained by the means of the experimental device correlates well with the available information derived from literature. Also, an exploitation phase is performed using PCM wallboards (Energain). Finally, in order to allow comparison of the experimental results of the bench test, a “semi-analytical” approach based on DSC (differential scanning calorimetry) measurements and a simplified homogenization schema (mixture law) was carried out. It was noticed that the results derived from the experimental device measurements (specific heat and latent heat) present a good approximation in comparison with the different approaches of DSC technique and homogenized schemes.