Monitoring system for the evaluation of the energetic behaviour of PCM containing walls

As dry assembled multi-layered walls very often suffer overheating in hot climates because of their low thermal inertia, the appropriate use of Phase Change Materials (PCM) inside the same walls can increase their thermal mass before they reach high temperatures (which they tend to do when irradiated by the sun) avoiding overheating. Two main experimental campaigns were carried out at the Renewable Energies Outdoor Laboratory of the Polytechnic University of Marche (Ancona, Italy): the first outdoor experimental campaign (2003) was aimed at testing and comparing the behaviour of seven different PCM containing stratifications to a reference dry assembled wall, while the second campaign (2004) focused on the behaviour of the two PCM containing walls which gave the best results during the previous test. In the second experimental campaign, the installation of a complicated air temperature control system allowed the task of maintaining internal air temperatures at a fixed value, in this way the differences relative to the energetic behaviour between the PCM containing walls and the reference one were evaluated.