Thermal behavior improvement of hollow sintered bricks integrated with both thermal insulation material (TIM) and Phase-Change Material (PCM)

Thermal Insulation Material (TIM) or Phase-Change Material (PCM) had been often employed to improve the thermal performance of hollow sintered bricks. To gain the reasonable and effective filling groups of TIM or PCM, seven walls were built by sintered hollow bricks with the different groups of TIM and PCM, while the numerical simulation was built and verified by the experimental data. Results revealed filling TIM and PCM had the different operation mechanisms on improving the thermal behavior of bricks. Filling TIM had mainly increased the thermal resistance, while employing PCM had the more contribution on improving the thermal inertia. Adding PCM in inner cavities could reduce the decrement factor from 12.3%-17.0% to 1.7%-2.2%, increase the delay time from 1.50-2.00 h to 6.17-6.50 h, decrease the peak heat flow from 38.7w/m(2)-35.2 w/m(2) to 19.2 w/m(2)-26.1w/m(2), but increase the average heat flow by 6.1%, while filling TIM in all cavities could reduce the average heat flow by 29.7%. Integrating both TIM and PCM could improve the thermal performance of bricks comprehensively in the thermal resistance and thermal inertia.

Automated summary

The study showed that filling TIM and PCM had different mechanisms for improving the thermal performance of hollow sintered bricks. PCM increased thermal inertia, while TIM mainly increased thermal resistance. Integrating both TIM and PCM could comprehensively improve the thermal performance of bricks.