Experimental analysis of PCM heat exchanger in ventilated window system

In this paper a new ventilated window with a PCM heat exchanger is proposed. In winter, the heat exchanger works as a solar collector to store heat for pre-heating of the ventilated air. In summer, it works in cooperate with night ventilation to pre-cool the ventilated air. In this work, the prototype of the heat exchanger is built and tested experimentally. The PCM heat capacity measured by differential scanning calorimetry DSC is used to help understand the phase change processes. The PCM temperature at different heights in both melting and freezing processes is measured. Moreover, the PCM temperature with different air flow rates is measured and compared. The results show that clear phase change is observed in both melting and freezing processes. The experiment with different air flow rates shows that the increase of air flow rate improves the heat exchange rate, but the improve rate is decreased gradually.