PHASE CHANGE MATERIALS IN BUILDING ENVELOPE
Description
The overall objective of the project is to improve the living conditions of the local population, through welfare and the fight against poverty and social inequalities. The specific objective is to set up a pilot unit using local building materials, with low environmental impact, provided with with organic phase change materials in order to study the improvement of the energy efficiency of residential and tertiary buildings. The valorization of local materials represents a priority for this project. Clay bricks are the basic matrix in which organic PCMs developed from bio based materials will be incorporated from biosourced materials. One of the tracks considered is the use of PCMs in the form of fatty acids extracted from the transformation of the olive into oil, allowing the valorization and the treatment of these wastes and therefore the protection of the environment . The research work will bring innovation, through the combination of local materials and bio sourced PCM, and will allow the companies of the building materials to develop by making evolve their products. Indeed, the analysis of the environmental performance and economic feasibility of these materials is an important new field of scientific research. The benefits, the energy consumption and the environmental indicator for all stages of the life cycle of the PCM must be evaluated in detail to configure an appropriate energy balance perspective of the material life cycle. Our research strategy aims to examine in detail the topic of PCM use as thermal energy storage materials for the building sector. The aim will therefore be to verify the feasibility and technical performance of PCM as a new way to stabilize the air temperature inside buildings. The study includes a modelling and numerical simulation and an experimental part. To carry out this project, a model will be developed by taking into account the physicochemical properties of the PCM to be integrated in the building envelope and the local climatic conditions in relation with the thermal comfort. A test chamber equipped with a set of sensors and recorders will be built in Morocco to create a local model based on empirical data. The simulations will be done using the EnergyPlus and Trnsys calculation tools by studying a large parametric analysis to calibrate the proposed model. The modeling of this system is essential to define the specifications of the materials and to determine how these PCMs can be integrated into the building envelope.