ABSTRACT
This paper details the addition of the special – phase change material function to the ESP-r energy simulation program. Passive building elements with PCM were modelled using the concept of the special materials technique. Phase change materials were introduced to ESP-r as means of modelling active building elements, i.e. those building elements which change their thermophysical properties in response to some external excitation. The control volume effective heat capacity method is proposed to carry out thermal simulations of building structures containing PCMs. The TIM-PCM intelligent building facade was proposed as a latent heat solar energy storage system. A numerical simulation for a triple zone building, based on real climatic data for Warsaw, is conducted to predict the TIM-PCM wall behavior and the influence of that structure on the diurnal latent heat storage effect. The results show the latent heat storage effect on the storage performance of the TIM-PCM intelligent facade system.
