Novel ventilation system for reducing air conditioning in buildings. Part II: testing of prototype

The technology for the night-time cooling of buildings has been significantly improved with the development of a working prototype of a latent heat storage system. The system, introduced in a previous paper, incorporates heal pipes embedded in phase change material. An improved unit design is presented, and the design, construction and testing of the prototype is reported, including measurements of heat transfer rates. Heat transfer rates of 200 W have been observed, which is sufficient to ameliorate the effects of high summer temperatures. There are substantial cost and energy-saving benefits to the system, both compared to conventional air conditioning and other technologies such as cooled beams, and the system can easily be retro-fitted. It is recommended that further developmental work be carried out to produce a pre-production prototype. (C) 2001 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.