Thermal performance of a radiant floor heating system with different heat storage materials and heating pipes

Guobing Zhou and Jing He

Applied Energy, 2015, vol. 138, issue C, 648-660

Abstract: Experiments were carried out to investigate the performance of a low-temperature radiant floor heating system with different heat storage materials (sand and phase change material) and heating pipes (polyethylene coils and capillary mat) in the floor structure of a test room. Detailed temperatures in both floor structural layers and the air of the room were measured for four different combinations of these thermal mass and heating pipes during charge and discharge operations. The results showed that the floor structure with capillary mat provides more uniform temperature profile in vertical direction of the test room and needs much shorter time (nearly half) to attain the same room temperature than the cases with polyethylene (PE) coils during the charging process. Also, after the heat source was closed, the floor structures using phase change material (PCM) as thermal mass release heat about 2 times longer than the cases using sand. A CFD simulation is also performed which confirms the measured data during the charging and discharging processes. The results indicate the advantages of using PCM – capillary mat combination for low – temperature floor panel typical of solar – hot – water heating system.

Keywords: Experiment; Radiant floor heating; Phase change material; Capillary mat; Polyethylene coil; Heat storage (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (22)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261914011088
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:appene:v:138:y:2015:i:c:p:648-660

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 405891/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2014.10.058

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Energy is currently edited by J. Yan

More articles in Applied Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().