Thermal testing and numerical simulation of a prototype cell using light wallboards coupling Vacuum Isolation Panels and Phase Change Material

Maha Ahmad (1) , André Bontemps (2) , Hébert Sallée (1) , Daniel Quénard (1)

1 CSTB - Centre Scientifique et Technique du Bâtiment
2 LEGI - Laboratoire des Écoulements Géophysiques et Industriels [Grenoble]

Light envelopes are more and more frequently used in modern buildings but they do not present sufficient thermal inertia. A solution to increase this inertia is to incorporate a phase change material (PCM) in this envelope. This paper presents the performance of a test-cell with a new structure of light wallboards containing PCMs submitted to climatic variation and a comparison is made with a test-cell without PCMs. To improve the wallboard efficiency a vacuum insulation panel (VIP) was associated to the PCM panel. This new structure allows the apparent heat capacity of the building to be increased, the solar energy transmitted by windows to be stored without raising the indoor cell temperature, and the thickness of the wallboard to be decreased compared with that of traditional wallboards. An experimental study was carried out by measuring temperature and heat fluxes on and through the wallboards. The indoor temperature, which has a special importance for occupants, was also measured. A numerical simulation with the TRNSYS software was carried out in adding a new module representing the new wallboard. It showed a good agreement with experimental results. This new tool will allow users to simulate the thermal behaviour of buildings having walls with PCMs.

Mots clés: Test-cell; Vacuum insulation panel; TRNSYS; VIP; Latent heat storage; Phase change materials; PCM; Computer simulation

Domaines: Eco-conception; Thermique [physics.class-ph]

Maha Ahmad, André Bontemps, Hébert Sallée, Daniel Quénard. Thermal testing and numerical simulation of a prototype cell using light wallboards coupling Vacuum Isolation Panels and Phase Change Material. Energy and Buildings, 2006, 38 (6), pp.673-681. ⟨10.1016/j.enbuild.2005.11.002⟩. ⟨hal-00184237⟩