Search

To face the climate change and carbon neutrality, reductions of energy-uses and carbon emissions are imminent. Pipe-encapsulated phase change material (PenPCM) wall is a novel envelope system with renewable energy utilizations in buildings. It combines the PCMs, nocturnal radiant cooler and gravity heat-pipe with the wall to achieve the automatic heat insulation and removal without the mechanical energy. Parameters may have influences on system performances and the parametric analysis is understudied. In this study, the influences of parameters including phase-change temperature, PCM thickness, pipe-spacings, cooler areas and orientations are investigated. The system applicability for different climate regions is also studied. Results show that, when the phase-change temperature is 27–29 °C, the ratio of the cooling load reduction to the cooling load of the conventional wall reaches largest with 17.4%. Appropriately increasing the PCM quantity can improve the thermal-storage capacity and decrease the wall temperature fluctuation. Enlarging the cooler area can increase the energy-saving effect of the PenPCM wall system. For different climate regions, the PenPCM wall system is applicable. Compared with conventional wall, the ratio of the cooling load reduction from June to September can reach 11.7%, 16.1%, 21.1%, 28.6%, 44.2% respectively for Hong Kong, Wuhan, Beijing, Harbin and Kunming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]