Thermal performance of an aluminum honeycomb wallboard incorporating microencapsulated PCM

•mPCM and Al honeycomb structure were combined to construct a wallboard prototype.•Thermal performance of the prototype was investigated experimentally.•The temperatures within the whole mPCM gradually and uniformly increased.•The PCM latent heat of the prototype can achieve a lower surface temperature.•A correlation of the effective thermal protection duration of the prototype was proposed.

This study combined building construction practice, microencapsulated phase change materials (mPCM), and aluminum honeycomb structures to construct an mPCM honeycomb wallboard prototype. The heat transfer characteristics and thermal storage behaviors of this prototype and other modules (mPCM only, mPCM + EG, and mPCM + iron-wire) were investigated experimentally. The results indicated that the aluminum honeycomb used for structural support and enhancing the thermal conductivity in the prototype rapidly transferred the heat flux into the mPCM. Consequently, the latent heat can be used to increase the time lag of the peak load, effectively shifting the peak hours of electricity use in the summer and achieving a lower module surface temperature than other modules. Thus, the mPCM + honeycomb exhibited better control over the surface temperature, which makes it suitable for use in places where the exterior surface temperature must be controlled. A correlation of the effective thermal protection duration of the mPCM + honeycomb modules for Ste* = 2–5 and Sc* = 0.24–0.32 was proposed.