Experimental research on a double-layer radiant floor system with phase change material under heating mode

• A new double-layer radiant floor system with phase change material is developed.
• An experimental system was built and the temperature field of the system was studied.
• The experimental results show that the new system can meet the thermal need of users.
• Compared to box A, box B has higher air temperature and air temperature change.
• The increase in supplied water temperature will decrease the thermal storage time.

In this paper, a new double-layer radiant floor system with phase change material (organics) is proposed, which can store thermal or cold energy in the off-peak period and use it in the peak period. The new system can work in both summer and winter, and the system does not need an additional refrigeration system, which only works in summer to supply cold air. By this way, the initial cost of the system will be decreased. An experimental setup was developed to study the performance of the new system under heating mode. The experimental results show that the double-layer radiant floor system with phase change material can meet the thermal need of users under heating mode. As the temperature rise in the thermal storage phase change material happens in the thermal storage process, the energy consumption of the system is lowered during thermal storage process. Under the same condition, experimental box B has the higher air temperature, but the air temperature change in box B is also bigger than box A. The floor temperature in box A in the heat release process changes little, which has a temperature difference of 2 °C during the whole heat release process.