Objectives
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The main goal of this project is to develop a combined experimental/CFD methodology for the parametric analysis of the thermal behaviour of new TES systems with rectangular cavities filled with different kinds of PCMs: free-form and microencapsulated PCMs. These TES systems are intended to be used to improve the energy performance of buildings by reducing the energy demand for heating and cooling, and by taking advantage of solar thermal energy.
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The problems to be studied lie in the mainstream area of the:
• characterization of the heat transfer through rectangular cavities filled with PCMs;
• characterization of the thermophysical properties of PCMs;
• CFD simulations considering solid-liquid phase-change processes:
• experimental evaluation of the overall transient heat transfer through both small- and full-scale, non-homogeneous TES building structures.
The particular goals are:
• to evaluate alternative methods for the thermophysical characterization of PCMs;
• to develop a CFD methodology for the detailed parametric analysis of the thermal behaviour of TES systems with rectangular cavities filled with different kinds of PCMs;
• to develop an experimental methodology to provide a large set of benchmarking results for numerical validation purposes and for the assessment of the thermal performance of some prototypes;
• to define full-scale prototypes to be numerically and experimentally optimized and to be used in the design of new TES systems for buildings.