Effect of encapsulation area on the thermal performance of PCM incorporated concrete bricks: A case study under Iraq summer conditions

In this paper, the thermal performance of phase change material (PCM) incorporated concrete bricks is studied experimentally. Four concrete bricks (three with macroencapsulated PCM and one without PCM represented the reference) are fabricated, and their thermal performance is tested under hot climate conditions. The study considered the effect of PCM encapsulation heat transfer area on brick's thermal performance at the same PCM quantity. PCM bricks included three different PCM capsule arrangements in which the first brick involved one bulky capsule (Brick-B, 4*4*10 cm3), the second brick had two capsules (Brick-C, 4*4*5 cm3), and the third brick involved five PCM capsules (Brick-D, 4*4*2 cm3). The peak temperature reduction (PTR), the conductive heat transfer reduction (HTRc), and the time delay (TD) were presented and calculated, taking into account the inner and outer brick surface temperatures of PCM bricks compared with the reference brick. Results showed that concrete bricks' thermal performance could be remarkably improved using PCM even under maximum outdoor temperatures. Moreover, the best thermal performance is reported for Brick-D, in which the maximum PTR, HTRc, and TD are reached 156.5 %, ∼61 %, and ∼133 %, respectively, compared with the reference brick under maximum outdoor temperatures.