Thermal Modeling in a Historical Building - Improving Thermal Comfort Through the Siting of a Passive Mass of Phase Change Material

D. Groulx[1], F. Herbinger[1], L. Desgrosseilliers[1]
[1]Mechanical Engineering, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada
发布日期 2014

A model of an office room was created in the COMSOL Multiphysics® software to simulate heat transfer and study the impact of siting a mass of phase change material (PCM) in a room to increase thermal comfort. This study determined that incorporating the selected PCM, butyl stearate, in the ceiling and in the floor did not alter the temperature of the room significantly after one hour. Incorporating the PCM in the floor near the windows proved to even slightly increase the temperature in the room. This was due to the high absorptivity of the PCM enclosure. With the PCM in the ceiling, the temperature decreased marginally: 0.1 °C in comparison to the room with no PCM.