INVESTIGATION OF THE TIME DEPENDENT THERMAL BEHAVIOR OF A CONTAINER WITH PCM WALLS DURING A HOT SUMMER DAY

In this paper, the thermal comfort of a container with PCM walls has been investigated numerically for a hot summer day in Rio de Janeiro. Four different cases have been investigated. These cases are: (i) container made by Polyurethane plates, which is the reference solution, (ii) RT 22 HC plates, (iii) RT 25 HC plates and (iv) RT 28 HC plates. Analyses have been performed for 10 hours from 08:00 to 18:00 h, and dimensionless numerical results for all investigated cases have been presented. Nondimensional governing equations have been solved by COMSOL Multiphysics finite element modeling and simulation software. Results show that although thermal conductivity of polyurethane is one-eighth of that of PCM, the container with PCM walls present considerably better performance. It has been observed that the average value of the dimensionless temperature inside the container is equal to its initial value at the end of the investigation time for the cases of RT 22 HC and RT 25 HC are used. On the other hand, this value shows increments of 0.1235 (2.35 degrees C) and 0.7710 (14.65 degrees C) respect to initial temperature, respectively for the cases of RT 28 HC and polyurethane are used at the end of that time.