Effects of wallboard design parameters on the thermal storage in buildings

The phase change material (PCM) could be added to the wallboard to increase the thermal mass to decrease in indoor temperature fluctuation and improve thermal comfort. In this study, experimentally validated simulation was performed to investigate the effects of various parameters of PCM including the nominal average phase change temperature, its range, the convective heat transfer coefficients and the wallboard thickness on the thermal storage performance of the wallboard such as the thermal energy storage and the time shift. It was found that the average phase change temperature should be close to the average room temperature to maximize the thermal heat storage in the wallboards. The phase change temperature should be narrow to maximize the thermal heat storage in the PCM wallboards. The thermal heat storage increased with the convective heat transfer coefficient, and the optimal average phase change temperature to maximize the storage shifted a bit to a higher temperature with it. The time shift was found to decrease with the convective heat transfer coefficient and the phase change temperature range.