Abstract
Minimizing the effect of climatic conditions and energy consumption in buildings are important issues to be considered in the building design process. Due to the changes in climatic conditions, there is an increase not only in the consumption of heating energy but also cooling energy. Certain passive measures to be taken primarily for the building envelope are necessary in order to reduce energy consumption. Applying a phase-change material on the surface of a building envelope is one of the new approaches for controlling heat transfer through the building envelope during the cooling period. It is known that phase-change materials, which are also considered as modern versions of thermal mass concept, can reduce the of a building’s heating and cooling energy consumption. In this study, a unit with 10m to 10m dimension with one external facade in a 3 storey building was evaluated in two cities, Istanbul and Diyarbakır, in temperate-humid and hot dry climatic regions. In order to reduce heating and cooling loads, a phase-change material was applied on the surface of the building envelope. The thickness of the phase-change material on the applied surface was increased at every step, and different building envelope alternatives were created. Heating and cooling energy consumptions were calculated for different orientations of the external facade. When calculated values are evaluated comparatively, it is seen that as the thickness of the phase-change material increases, the energy loads occurred in the unit decrease gradually. Equally, the performance of the phase-change materials varies depending on the orientation. Therefore, it is possible to determine the optimum thickness and orientation combination of the phase-change material application on a building envelope and reduce heating and cooling energy consumptions.
Highlights
Introduction82% of the energy consumed in buildings is used for heating [1]. On the other hand, demand for cooling in buildings has been rising fast
Biwole [6], Köse and Manioğlu [7,8] claim in their studies that Phase-Change Materials (PCMs) optimize indoor comfort conditions and reduce energy consumption through theirs thermal storage capabilities [9,10] In addition to the above mentioned studies, in this study, heating and cooling energy consumptions when PCM is applied on external walls for a middle unit with different orientations and in different climatic regions were calculated using a simulation program and evaluated using comparative analyses
When we look at the heating energy consumption of the cities; A5 alternative was the alternative with the lowest consumption which was in direct proportion with the increasing PCM thickness
Summary
82% of the energy consumed in buildings is used for heating [1]. On the other hand, demand for cooling in buildings has been rising fast. Thermal energy storage capacity of Phase-Change Materials (PCMs) which is developed as an alternative to the conventional thermal mass concept is used to reduce heating and cooling energy in buildings. With the heat they store during night, PCMs can optimize indoor temperature during daytime. Their working principle is to prevent a decrease in indoor temperature They reduces cooling requirement in hot climatic regions. They tend to reduce heating energy in cold climatic regions [6,7]. Thermal energy storage methods are classified into two groups, the first being sensible heat and the other is latent heat. By increasing the temperature of the heat storage material the energy is stored as sensible heat. The relationship between sensible heat and latent heat is shown in Figure 1 [3] [8]
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