An experimental study on a radiant floor system with double-layered phase change materials

doi:10.12028/j.issn.2095-4239.2017.0075

Abstract

Abstract: This paper reports a newly proposed phase change material based radiant floor system. The system consists of two phase change material layers with one for cold storage for space cooling and the other for heat storage for space heating. The phase change temperatures of the two materials are respectively 18 ℃ and 34 ℃. Two designs of the floor systems, A and B, were studied. The Design A had the cold storage layer placed on top of the heat storage layer; whereas the Design B placed the heat storage material on top of the cold. An experimental system was used to compare the two designs, which used a flow of water (120 L/h flowrate) with inlet temperatures of 45 ℃ and 15 ℃ for heating and cooling respectively. The results showed that the designs had a great influence on the indoor air temperature under the heating operations but exerted very little influence on the indoor air temperature under the cooling operations. This implied that the Design B had a better heat transfer performance than the Design A.

Key words: phase change material, floor radiant, numerical simulation, energy storage and release, experimental study

ZHANG Shuyang 1, XIA Yi2, ZHANG Xiaosong1. An experimental study on a radiant floor system with double-layered phase change materials[J]. Energy Storage Science and Technology, 2017, 6(4): 730-738.

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