Energy and daylighting performance of a building containing an innovative glazing window with solid-solid phase change material and silica aerogel integration

Abstract

Responding to the appeal of realizing carbon neutrality in response to the field of buildings, minimizing the energy demand and improving the energy management of the buildings by the development of energy saving technologies related to transparent components are considered as promising means. In this paper, an innovative glazing window integrated with solid-solid phase change material and silica aerogel is proposed, and a parametric study is conducted with a focus on evaluating the implementation potential of our innovative window in the severe cold region of China. Firstly, to address the issue that the transparent media such as phase change material and silica aerogel cannot be directly incorporated into glazing elements of EnergyPlus software, an equivalent model of the innovative window compatible with the modeling capabilities of EnergyPlus is developed. Then, the contributions of the thermal and optical properties of phase change material to energy savings are quantitively distinguished via sensitivity analysis. Additionally, the energy performance of the building containing the innovative window under different thermal and optical properties of phase change material is numerically investigated aiming to provide guidance to the design strategies of phase change material parameters adopted in the innovative window. Finally, in light of counterbalancing the need for energy saving and daylighting performance indoors, the optimal silica aerogel thickness employed in the innovative window is studied. The results show that the phase change material properties of melting temperature, latent heat, absorption coefficient, and refractive index are of remarkable relevance to the energy performance of the buildings in conditions of 10 % property variations. In comparison to the 4 mm single glazing window installed, the maximum energy saving of the building containing the innovative window can be realized by 18.22 % within the realistic range of phase change material properties. Moreover, for the sake of providing the maximum possibility of energy saving under the premise of meeting the daylighting design standards in China, the thickness of silica aerogel is recommended to be selected as 10 mm in the innovative window.