CFD analysis on heat transfer in a building wall using Phase Change Materials (PCM)

Abstract

Environmental conditioning is now a critical factor for modern day keeping the temperature inside the buildings in a safe state using the air-conditioner. Phase change materials promise innovative materials that are used inside the building to build wall for cooling. The current work is aimed at managing the thermal transfer in buildings using PCM materials and controlling the transfer of heat from various states to store the energy and use it later. A PCM storage medium filled with a variety of PCM panels was developed and tested using the ANSYS Fluent simulation of computational fluid dynamics. In this paper the PCM is purposely designed between the roof and concrete wall layer for energy gains in thermal systems to storing solar energy in buildings. The experiment was conducted using 3D model designed per mass unit within a small temperature range using CFD analysis. Numerical model displayed effective similarity with experiment; hence the model can be used as energy storage unit under different configurations for performance evaluation of the building system. The specific heat, viscosity, heat conductivity, temperature and total energy has been evaluated using the linear method available using CFD Fluent. Majorly the result considering depends on the thickness, inlet cooling temperature and mass flow rates.