Experimental Study on Thermal Performance Improvement of Building Envelopes Integrated with Phase Change Materials in an Air-conditioned Room

Phase change materials (PCMs) are used to decrease the indoor temperature swing, keep the indoor environment comfortable and increase energy efficiency of buildings by enhancing the thermal storage capacity of building walls. This paper studied the thermal performance of the PCM wall and the reference wall when the air-condition ran continuously and intermittently through experiment. An experimental building with these two kinds of wall units was chosen, and the inner surface temperature and heat flow were measured. Results showed that the PCMs reduced the inner surface temperature 1°C and the inner surface heat flow about 40% during continuous air conditioning. Otherwise, when the air-condition ran intermittently by the working schedule, the cold releasing time of PCM wall was 2 hours longer than the reference wall. The PCMs can improved the thermal performance of building envelope significantly.