Energy and Buildings 148 (2017) 238–256

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Energy and Buildings

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/enbuild

Evaluating the passive and free cooling application methods of phase

change materials in residential buildings: A comparative study
Morshed Alam ∗ , Jay Sanjayan, Patrick X.W. Zou, Sayanthan Ramakrishnan, John Wilson
Centre for Sustainable Infrastructure, Faculty of Science Engineering and Technology, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, Victoria 3122,
Australia

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The integration of Phase Change Materials (PCMs) in buildings as a potential method to improve indoor
Received 18 December 2016 thermal comfort can be achieved via three different approaches: passive, active and free cooling. Previous
Received in revised form 28 April 2017 studies on the thermal performance enhancement using these methods revealed that all three methods
Accepted 8 May 2017
can improve the energy efficiency or indoor thermal comfort of a building significantly. However, there
Available online 13 May 2017
is no study available in the literature comparing the effectiveness of different PCM application meth-
ods. Such comparative analysis is important to understand which application method would be best
Keywords:
for increasing the energy efficiency and thermal comfort of a particular building type. The aim of the
Phase change materials
Passive cooling
present study is to compare and analyze the effectiveness of passive and free cooling application meth-
Heat exchanger ods of PCM in a residential building in Melbourne, Australia. The passive application method utilizes a
Free cooling macro-encapsulated PCM, so-called BioPCM mats, installed in the ceilings of the building. In free cooling,
Building thermal simulation outdoor air was supplied to the indoor after passing it through a PCM containing heat exchanger. The
Computational fluid dynamics comparative study was carried out using validated numerical models for both application methods. The
simulation models were developed using building simulation software EnergyPlus V8.3 and computa-
tional fluid dynamics (CFD) software ANSYS V15.1. The results showed that, for the studied building, free
cooling application of PCM is more effective than the passive application in reducing the indoor zone
temperature. During the studied period of seven days, passive application of 25 ◦ C PCM resulted in up
to 0.44 ◦ C reduction in peak indoor zone temperature compared to 2.63 ◦ C reduction in the free cooling
application which is about six times of the reduction in passive case. Despite the use of several support-
ing strategies to improve the performance of passive PCM application, its effectiveness in reducing the
peak zone temperature was always found to be lower than the free cooling method. Parametric studies
showed that the optimum PCM temperature should be carefully chosen based on the application method
as free cooling and passive cooling methods are influenced by outdoor air temperature and indoor zone
temperature respectively.
© 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction can contribute to eliminating the mismatch between energy sup-

The building sector accounts for approximately 40% of primary
energy consumption and one-third of greenhouse gas emission
worldwide [1]. The energy demand of this sector is growing rapidly
due to increasing population growth, high living standards and
people spent more time in indoor [2]. The thermal energy storage
(TES) system can be considered as an effective method to reduce
the building energy use and to improve indoor thermal comfort.
Moreover, an appropriate and economical way of TES in buildings
∗ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: mmalam@swin.edu.au (M. Alam).
ply and demand, when they do not coincide in time. Therefore,
development of TES systems in buildings has been attracting more
and more attention around the world. TES systems can be achieved
by sensible heat storage, latent heat storage, and chemical energy
storage. Among those three different methods, latent heat storage
with the use of phase change materials (PCMs) has received con-
siderable attention in recent decades due to its potential benefits
of high volumetric heat capacity and small temperature variation
during the phase transition process [3]. PCMs absorb or release the
energy equivalent to their latent heat when the temperature of the
material undergoes or overpasses the phase change temperature.
The use of PCMs in buildings can be categorized into three
methods: passive, active and free cooling [4–6]. Passive methods
are referred to the technologies where the TES system is oper-

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2017.05.018
0378-7788/© 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
 M. Alam et al. / Energy and Buildings 148 (2017) 238–256
Fig. 1. The framework of research process and methods.
Fig. 2. The house plan of first and the second floor with Thermal zones for simula-
tion.
ated without the external supply of energy. Typical applications
of passive methods are PCM integrated into building fabrics such
as walls, floors, ceiling and roofing materials. A large number of
studies reported that this method could significantly reduce the
building energy consumption and improve indoor thermal comfort.
239
For instance, Castell et al. [7] showed that under free floating condi-
tions, maximum air temperature of the concrete cubicles with PCM
integrated bricks reduces by up to 1 ◦ C. The operative energy con-
sumption of the cubicles containing PCM was also reduced by 15%
compared to the cubicles without PCM. In another study [8], incor-
poration of microencapsulated PCM in the concrete wall reduced
the maximum temperature by 1 ◦ C and increased the minimum
temperature by 2.8 ◦ C. Similar behavior of PCM were also observed
by Silva et al. [9] when PCM was passively operated with the inte-
gration into brick walls. Athienitis et al. [10] reported a reduction
of 4 ◦ C in maximum room temperature when PCM integrated wall-
boards are applied as internal wall elements of a passive solar test
room in Montreal, Canada. Behzadi et al. [11] also concluded that
the use PCM-impregnated gypsum board could lessen the indoor
temperature fluctuation by 4 ◦ C on a typical summer day in Auck-
◦
land, New Zealand. In another study [12], a reduction of 20 C in the
indoor temperature amplitude of a test cell was observed through
the application of a composite wallboard with vacuum insulation
panel and PCM during summer in France.
Through numerical simulation of building with PCM plaster
on the inner side of the wall, Ascione et al. [13] showed that
energy saving potential increases with the increase of PCM thick-
ness. Campbell et al. [14] showed from their simulation studies
that for most climates in the USA, a PCM (BioPCMTM ) melt tem-
perature of 25 ◦ C yield the largest increases in occupant comfort.
Based on this simulation results, Sage-Lauck et al. [15] also evalu-
ated the thermal performance of a duplex house in Portland, USA
with the integration of BioPCM (phase transition temperature of
25 ◦ C) with the experimental and numerical study. The authors
concluded that the incorporation of BioPCMTM could reduce the
zone overheated hours by about 50%. More recently, Jamil et al.
[16] showed that up to 1.1 ◦ C reduction in indoor air temperature
during daytime and 34% reduction in thermal discomfort hours
could be achieved through the passive installation of Bio-PCM in
the ceiling of a duplex house in Melbourne, Australia. Although
the studies mentioned above indicated that the passive PCM appli-
cation could significantly improve indoor thermal comfort, their
efficiency largely depends on the thermo-physical properties of
PCM and local climatic conditions [3]. The primary drawback of
passive application methods is that the incomplete solidification
of PCM at night, thus leading to inadequate diurnal energy storage
on the next day. The main reason behind this phenomenon can be
explained by the fact that PCM components are mainly interact-
ing with indoor air and higher night indoor temperature prevents
PCM from complete solidification. Furthermore, low convective
heat transfer rates between the PCM component and indoor air
due to poor heat exchange also further exacerbates the incomplete
solidification. To overcome the issues related to passive application
methods, active and free cooling methods were widely explored.
The active methods are more complex than passive, requiring
components, such as fans and pumps as well as a control system.
240 M. Alam et al. / Energy and Buildings 148 (2017) 238–256
The active TES systems integrate PCM in HVAC systems such as
air-conditioning units [17,18], floor heating systems [19,20] and
domestic ground heat pumps [21,22] to reduce the peak energy
demands and annual energy consumptions. In addition to these
methods, Yamaha and Misaki [23] proposed an air distribution sys-
tem with PCM in the air ducts for peak load shifting purposes. It was
shown that, with an adequate amount of PCM, a constant room tem-
perature could be maintained without any cold source operation.
Furthermore, the melting temperature suitable for the system was
found as 19 ◦ C. Real et al. [24] studied the performance enhance-
ment of a heat pump-based HVAC system with two thermal storage
tanks using PCM. A cold tank utilizes the cool night time outside air
temperature to solidify the PCM and use it later to cool the building.
The second tank acts as an alternative hot reservoir providing the
system with the flexibility to dissipate heat at constant tempera-
ture ensuring COP value to remain over a minimum limit. Chaiyat
[25] also investigated the use of PCM to improve the efficiency of
an air conditioner in the tropical climate zone of Thailand. In their
study, PCM was used to reduce the air temperature entering the
evaporative coil. The results showed that electrical consumption of
the modified air-conditioner could be decreased to 3.09 kWh/day
which is equivalent to the cost savings of 170 USD/year. The calcu-
lated payback period was around 4.12 years.
The free cooling system also utilizes the external energy sup-
ply to operate the TES systems. However, as opposed to active TES
systems, an HVAC unit is not required in this application. The free
cooling system stores the coldness of night ambient temperature
and extracts it during day-time by supplying the indoor/outdoor
air through PCM storage unit. Turnpenny et al. [26] developed a
heat storage unit system by embedding heat pipes into PCM unit
and circulating the room air to extract cold storage during the day-
time. At night, cold storage is supplied to the PCM unit by drawing
the cool ambient air over the heat storage units. Authors claimed
that this unit could provide adequate cold storage to prevent over-
heating of the office building for summer climatic conditions in the
UK. Yanbing et al. [27] also developed a packed bed PCM storage
unit for installing in the space between the suspended ceiling and
the floor above. The experimental results showed that the tem-
perature of the room with PCM system is much comfortable than
the other three neighboring rooms and cooling power of the sys-
tem was equivalent to 300W during the hot day times. Weinläder
et al. [28] monitored the performance of a ventilated cooling ceil-
ing integrated with PCM in two offices and a conference room in
Germany and monitored the room temperatures during summer
2009 and 2010. During the day, the ventilation was purely in circu-
lating operation, while cool outside air was used during the night to
regenerate the PCM. The results showed that the ventilated ceiling
with PCM reduced the maximum operative room temperature in
the office rooms by up to 2 K compared to a reference room without
a cooling system. Osterman et al. [29] developed a thermal storage
unit consists of 30 plates filled with paraffin RT22 HC PCM. It was
shown that this unit could reduce the annual energy consumption
of the typical office room (4 m x 3 m x 2.8m) by 142 kWh.
The design of heat storage unit also plays a vital role in the
effective utilization of energy storage. Through experimental anal-
ysis, Butala and Stritih [30] showed that the higher the airflow
rate and the temperature difference between inlet air and PCM
storage unit, the lower is the time required to transfer the cold-
ness from the PCM storage to the inlet air. An empirical equation
was developed from their experimental data to calculate the time
needed to release the cold storage from a PCM thermal storage
unit to ambient air. Rouault et al. [31] highlighted the influence
of PCM container geometry on the performance of heat storage
unit. Alvarez et al. [32] developed a ventilated PCM façade and
showed that this design has significantly enhanced the convective
heat transfer rate to PCM. Due to the inclusion of active control
systems, their proposed solution allowed usage of the stored cold-
ness when required. Esen and Ayhan [33] showed that the design
of a cylindrical energy storage tank must consider the parametric
factors of PCM type, cylinder radius, the mass flow rate, and the
inlet temperature of the heat transfer fluid to optimize the perfor-
mance of the tank. In another study [34], it was shown that the PCM
melting time not only depends on thermal and geometric parame-
ters of the unit but also on thermo-physical properties of PCM, and
therefore, both factors should be considered. In contrast, Waqas
and Kumar [35] showed that the performance of the storage unit is
more sensitive to phase change temperatures of the PCM compared
to air flow rates. Also, they indicated that during shorter summer
nights, the air flow rates should be higher during charging operation
than discharge operation of the storage unit.
An extensive review [36] of the free cooling applications
revealed that the thermo-physical properties of PCMs and geome-
try of encapsulation are still the main challenges for the effective
utilization of PCM in the free cooling application. Furthermore, heat
transfer performance enhancement of PCM and lack of real case
investigations are present as main barriers for free cooling applica-
tion of PCMs in buildings.
2. Research motivation
The abovementioned studies show that all of the passive, active
and free cooling applications of PCM have the potential to reduce
indoor air temperature and increase building energy efficiency and
thermal comfort under different climate conditions. The actual
magnitude of reduced temperature, enhanced thermal comfort,
and energy savings depends on many factors, such as local climatic
conditions, the thermo-physical properties of PCM, the location of
application, system control and design of PCM unit. Also, from the
reviewed literature, it appears that free cooling application of PCM
may be more effective than the passive application as the former
one has more control of charge/discharge process and stored energy
can be accessed when it is required. On the other hand, although the
passive method showed some promising results, this method suf-
fers from heat transfer related problems, and its efficiency largely
depends on the outdoor temperature. As such, there is no research
comparing the effectiveness of these two different PCM application
methods for a particular building type and climate scenario. Such
comparative analysis would provide an understanding of the opti-
mum PCM application method under those conditions. Therefore,
the main aim of the present study is to investigate the effectiveness
of passive and free cooling application method of PCM when used
as energy efficient retrofitting in a specific residential building. A
modern duplex building in Melbourne, Australia was used as a case
in this study. It is a four-bedroom house with floor area of 326 m2
and was built on 2009.
3. Research process and methods
Fig. 1 presents the research process and methods followed in
this study. The research was carried out in two parts. Part 1 consid-
ers the experimental study on the passive application of PCM in a
full-scale building, development of a numerical model using build-
ing simulation software EnergyPlus and validation of the passive
model using experimental data. In part 2, experimental analysis
of free cooling application was carried out first. Unlike the passive
application experiment, a pilot scale model was used for free cool-
ing application because it was not feasible to install the equipment
required for free cooling application in real buildings. The pilot
scale experimental model was developed in a climate controlled
environmental chamber in the laboratory where the temperature
and humidity were controlled in a way representative of typical
 M. Alam et al. / Energy and Buildings 148 (2017) 238–256 241

Table 1
Construction details of the experimental house.

Name Construction (outside to inside layer)

External Walls Brick veneer construction, 40 mm air-gap, insulation and 10 mm wall plasterboard installed to the internal surface.
Internal Walls Wall Plasterboard, 90 mm Air gap, Wall Plasterboard
Roof Roof tiles
2nd Level Ceiling Flat ceiling having 13 mm ceiling plasterboard and R 4.0 ceiling insulation; PCM installed between insulation and plasterboard in Bed 2
Ground Floor Concrete, Ceramic tiles
2nd Level Floor Ceiling Plasterboard, 90 mm Air gap, Floor Timber, Carpet
Door Timber

Table 2
Thermo-physical properties of the building materials.

Name Thickness (m) Conductivity (W/m·K) Density (kg/m3) Specific heat (J/kg·K) R-value (m2·K/W)

Brick veneer 0.11 0.61 1690 878 0.18

Wall Insulation wall 0.09 0.045 12 883 0.8
Ceiling Insulation 0.176 0.044 12 883 4
Wall Plasterboard 0.01 0.17 847 1090 0.059
Ceiling Plasterboard 0.013 0.17 847 1090 0.0765
Ceramic tiles 0.012 1.2 2500 640 0.01
Carpet 0.02 0.0465 104 1420 0.43
Concrete slab 0.085 1.42 2400 880 0.06
Roof tiles 0.02 1.42 2400 880 0.014
Timber (door) 0.035 0.16 838 1260 0.28

summer days in Melbourne, Australia. It was then followed by the
development and validation of a free cooling numerical model.
The fluid dynamics software ANSYS-CFX and building simulation
software EnergyPlus were used to develop the free cooling model.
Finally, the validated passive and free cooling models were used to
investigate and compare the effectiveness of free cooling applica-
tion method of PCM in the studied duplex house.
3.1. Experimental study of passive PCM application
The experimental study on passive PCM application was car-
ried out in a full-scale duplex residential building in Melbourne.
Fig. 2 shows the floor plan of the studied house. PCM was installed
in the ceiling of BED 2 between the ceiling insulation and ceiling
plasterboard. Macro-encapsulated BioPCMTM , which is a polyfilm
encapsulated fatty-acid based organic PCM, was used in this study.
PCM with 25 ◦ C melting temperature was chosen in this study due
to its optimum performance in the summer weather of Melbourne
under the free running condition, as reported in our previous study
[3]. The building materials and construction details of the building
are given in Tables 1 and 2. To monitor indoor air temperature, two
thermistors (accuracy ± 0.1 ◦ C) were installed in BED 2 zone which
records the indoor dry bulb temperature in every ten minutes. A
Davis Wireless Vantage Pro2 (Model 6152AU) weather station was
mounted at the backyard of the house to record the outdoor dry
bulb temperature, outdoor humidity, rain rate, solar radiation, wind
speed and direction and barometric pressure. More details on the
experimental study can be found in the authors’ previous study
[16].
to record the opening and closing time of the windows and window
blinds. The “ZoneMixing” object was used to facilitate the mixing
of air between the zones as the doors between the rooms were kept
open by the users. The internal heat gain in each zone was taken
into account in the simulation using “People” and “ElectricEquip-
ment” object. The heat transfer between the building floor and the
ground were modeled using the GroundHeatTransfer: Slab module
of the EnergyPlus software [38]. Infiltration in all zones was taken
into account through “Design flow rate” infiltration model avail-
able in the software which calculates the infiltration according to
following equation [38]:
Infiltration = Idesign ∗ [A + B ∗ |Tzone − Todb |] + C ∗ Ws + D ∗ Ws2 (1)
Here, Idesign is the air change per hour, A, B, C and D, are
equation constants, Tzone and Todb are the zone temperature and
outdoor dry bulb temperature and Ws is the wind speed. The val-
ues used for Idesign, A,B,C and D are 1.0, 0.2, 0.03636, 0.07 and 0
respectively for all zones except for the zones with exhaust fan. In
the zones with exhaust fan, higher value of constant A was used.
The constants of equation (1) were selected according to EnergyPlus
engineering reference[38] and personal communication with Dong
Cheng who developed an infiltration model for Australian hous-
ing energy analysis [39]. The predicted average infiltration rate for
the experimental house was around 0.4 ACH which is typical for a
house built after 2000 in Melbourne, Australia [39]. Wind and Stack
model was used to represent the wind driven air flow through the
openings. In this model, the ventilation air flow rate through the
window is a function of wind speed and thermal stack effect, along
with the area of the opening being modeled.

3.2. Development of passive application model Total Ventilationwind and stack


= Ventilation wind2 + Ventilation Stack2 (2)
The passive application model of PCM was developed using
building simulation software EnergyPlus V8.3. The whole duplex Where,
house was divided into 17 thermal zones as shown in Fig. 2. All the
Ventilation Wind = Cw ∗ Opening Area ∗ Schedule
zones were simulated using conduction finite difference algorithm
(ConFD) which provides the opportunity to simulate materials with ∗Wind Speed (3)
variable thermo-physical properties such as PCM. A 2 min time-
step was used in the model as suggested by Tabares- Velasco et al.
[37] for accurate simulation of PCM in EnergyPlus. Schedules of Ventilation Stack = Cd ∗ Opening Area ∗ Schedule
window and window blind operation for different zones were cre- 
ated using the records of log-sheet that was given to the occupants ∗ 2gH(|Tzone − Todb |/Tzone ) (4)
242 M. Alam et al. / Energy and Buildings 148 (2017) 238–256
Fig. 3. Comparison of experimental and simulation temperature of BED 2 zone in the studied house.
Where Cw is the opening effectiveness of the windows and was
calculated from wind direction and position of windows. A fraction
multiplier called ‘Schedule’ was applied to consider the change in
window opening area with time. The schedule was defined accord-
ing to the input of the chart that was given to the occupant to record
the window opening and closing schedule and time. Cd is the dis-
charge coefficient for opening and was calculated using equation
(5). H is the height from midpoint of lower opening to the neutral
pressure level of the building.
Cd = 0.4 + 0.0045||Tzone − Todb |
3.3. Validation of passive application model
The developed EnergyPlus model was validated by comparing
the simulation results with recorded temperature data as shown in
Fig. 3. The inspection of Fig. 3 reveals a good agreement between
daily simulated and experimental temperature plot of BED 2 zone.
The RMS error of the daily temperature in Bed 2 zone was found as
1.1 ◦ C with less than 1 ◦ C temperature difference for 73.5% of hours.
Fig. 3 also shows considerable disagreements between simulation
and experiments on few occasions. Such discrepancies are to be
expected given the inability of the model to capture the occupant
behavior and occupancy anomalies including unoccupied periods.
However, these differences do not undermine the conclusion that
can be drawn from the validation study that the developed Ener-
gyPlus model can be used to predict the thermal behavior of the
buildings with good accuracy.
3.4. Experimental study on free cooling application
As mentioned in methodology, a pilot scale experimental model
was developed to study the free cooling application method of
PCM. The experimental model was built in the climate controlled
thermal chamber at smart structure laboratory of the Swinburne
University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia. Fig. 4(a) shows the
developed experimental test room. The interior dimensions of the
model house are 1 m long, 0.66 m wide and the height varies from
0.71 m to 0.66m. The size of the single glazing window is 0.3 m
X 0.32 m. The construction details of the house are presented in
Table 3.
Table 3
Constructions of pilot scale house for free cooling application.
Name Construction (outside to inside layer)
External walls 12 mm timber, R1.8 insulation with reflective foil on
one side, 13 mm plasterboard.
Roof 2 mm corrugated iron sheet, R 1.8 insulation, 13 mm
plasterboard
Floor 10 mm timber, R 1.8 insulation, 13 mm plasterboard
Window Single glazing
(5) A schematic diagram of the experimental set-up is also pre-
sented in Fig. 4(b). The figure shows that the ambient air is
circulated through the PCM heat exchanger unit (this system will
be called as a free cooling unit in this paper) before being supplied
to the experimental house. The PCM used in this pilot scale exper-
imental study consists of inorganic hydrated salt with the melting
temperature of 22 ◦ C. Inside the PCM storage tank, a 22 mm diam-
eter and 6 m long helical copper tube were immersed in PCM. A
ventilation fan was used to supply the air through the copper pipe
immersed in PCM inside the PCM storage tank. The PCM storage
tank and the pipe connecting the experimental house and PCM
storage tank were highly insulated to prevent the heat loss to ambi-
ent air. The K-type temperature sensors (Accuracy ± 0.05 ◦ C) were
installed at the inlet of PCM storage tank, the exit of PCM storage
tank (inlet of the experimental house), inside the PCM storage tank
and inside the experimental house. A digital anemometer was also
attached to the air inlet of the experimental house to monitor the
supplied air flow rate. The monitored air inlet velocity in the experi-
mental model house was around 1.9 ± 0.1 m/s. The experiment was
run for five consecutive days, where the chamber temperature var-
ied following a sinusoidal curve from 20 ◦ C to 30 ◦ C for 12 h and was
kept constant at 20 ◦ C for next 12 h.
3.5. Development of free cooling application model
The free cooling PCM application model was developed in two
parts: (1) PCM heat exchanger modeling using computational fluid
dynamics (CFD) software ANSYS CFX V15.1 and (2) Building thermal
simulation using EnergyPlus V8.3.
The heat transfer process between air and PCM in the free cool-
ing unit was modeled using computational fluid dynamics model
(CFD) which was developed using ANSYS CFX. The developed CFD
 M. Alam et al. / Energy and Buildings 148 (2017) 238–256 243

Fig. 4. (a) Model house of free cooling experiment and (b) schematic of experimental setup.

model contains two domains: fluid (air) and solid (PCM) as shown
in Fig. 5. The fluid domain consists of pipe network through which
air was supplied. The mesh was refined at the solid-fluid interface
using advanced size function proximity and curvature. The PCM
was assumed to be solid although, in reality, it changes to liq-
uid when it exceeds the phase transition temperature. However,
the convective heat transfer in the liquid stage is negligible in this
temperature range and this assumption will result in a very negli-
gible error in the results. Phase transition characteristic of the PCM
was taken into account through temperature-dependent specific
heat data as shown in Fig. 6. In the experimental study, the PCM
heat storage unit was insulated on all sides except the top side
to minimize heat transfer between the PCM in the container and
surrounding external air. Therefore, an adiabatic boundary condi-
tion was used at the insulated surfaces, and temperature boundary
condition (ambient air temperature) was used at the non-insulated
surfaces. For the fluid domain, velocity boundary condition was
used at the inlet, and static pressure boundary condition was used
at the outlet. The time-dependent air temperature as shown in Fig. 8
was applied at the inlet using the user functions approach. No slip
wall boundary condition was used at the pipe surface. The heat
transfer between the fluid and solid domain was modeled using the
244 M. Alam et al. / Energy and Buildings 148 (2017) 238–256

Fig. 5. Free cooling unit with PCM.

Fig. 6. temperature-dependent specific heat capacity of PCM.

conservative interface flux option in ANSYS CFX. The simulations
were run at 60 s time step for 144 h (6 days).
Using the CFD model of the free cooling unit, the temperature
and velocity of ambient air after passing through the PCM heat
exchanger was calculated. This information was then fed into the
developed EnergyPlus building simulation model of the free cooling
application using the algorithm presented in Fig. 7. Building sim-
ulation model for free cooling application of PCM was similar to
the passive application case except that there was no PCM element
in the building fabrics and one extra algorithm is added (Fig. 7) to
the model to include the free cooling unit. According to the algo-
rithm, the calculated outlet air flow rate and air velocity from CFD
model are supplied into EnergyPlus simulation model assuming as
an HVAC system object. In summary, each simulation of free cool-
ing application consists of CFD simulation of the PCM free cooling
unit and EnergyPlus simulation of the building thermal condition
incorporating output of CFD model.
3.6. Validation of free cooling application model
The validation of free cooling system was carried out in two
parts: 1) validation of the CFD model of free cooling unit and 2)
validation of developed algorithm (Fig. 7) in EnergyPlus model for
the free cooling application. To validate the CFD model, the exper-
 M. Alam et al. / Energy and Buildings 148 (2017) 238–256 245

Fig. 7. Algorithm for free cooling model in EnergyPlus.

Fig. 8. Simulated and experimental outlet temperature of PCM heat storage unit.

imental outlet temperature of the PCM storage unit was compared
with simulated outlet temperature. Fig. 8 shows the experimen-
tal and simulated outlet temperature of the PCM storage unit and
corresponding inlet temperature. A good agreement between the
experimental and numerical results can be seen which resulted in
an RMS error of only 0.27 ◦ C. For validating the free cooling appli-
cation algorithm in EnergyPlus, the simulated zone temperature
was compared with recorded experimental zone temperature data
in the pilot study and presented in Fig. 9. The figure shows good
agreement between simulated and experimentally recorded zone
temperature with RMS error of only 0.32 ◦ C.
4. Comparison of the effectiveness of passive and free
cooling applications
The validated models of passive and free cooling applications
were used to calculate and compare the effectiveness of these two
PCM application methods in reducing indoor air temperature of
the selected duplex house during the typical summer period in
Melbourne. The representative meteorological year (RMY) weather
data of Melbourne from 26th of February to 3rd of March was
used to represent the typical summer climatic conditions. In both
applications, a total of 58 kg of BioPCM with the phase transition
temperature of 25 ◦ C was used in the Bed2 thermal zone of the
duplex house. It should be noted that complete melting and freez-
ing temperature of 25 ◦ C BioPCM is 27 ◦ C and 23 ◦ C, respectively.
Between these temperatures, the 25 ◦ C PCM remains in a mushy
state where it partially melted and solidified state. In passive appli-
cation, Bio-PCM was applied as a packed PCM mat form with the
content of 4.9 kg/m2 in between the ceiling insulation and ceiling
plasterboard. The enthalpy − temperature function (Fig. 10) of the
BioPCM was used to model the phase change process in EnergyPlus.
The thermal conductivity, specific heat capacity and the density of
the BioPCMTM used in the model were 0.2 W/m·K, 1970 J/kg·K and
235 kg/m3 respectively.
In free cooling application, the outdoor air was passed through
free cooling unit before supplying it into the Bed2 zone. The free
cooling unit as shown in Fig. 5 has two domains referred as air
domain (fluid) and PCM domain (solid). The air domain consists
of a 0.0392 m diameter and 5.4 m long copper pipe. Outdoor air
246 M. Alam et al. / Energy and Buildings 148 (2017) 238–256

Fig. 9. Comparison of simulated and experimental temperature of the model house with free cooling unit.

Fig. 10. The Enthalpy − Temperature curve for 25 ◦ C BioPCM.

was supplied at 5 m/s through the copper pipe. Hourly temperature
value of the outdoor air was applied at the inlet using user func-
tions. The boundary conditions that were used in the developed
CFD model of the free cooling unit is presented in Table 4.
The volume of PCM domain is 0.024m3 and contains 5.8 kg of
BioPCM (Density of BioPCM is 235 kg/m3 ). To ensure that similar
amount of PCM is used in both passive and free cooling application
method, ten such free cooling units was considered in the current
free cooling model. Outlet air from all ten free cooling units enters
into the supply air duct which then supplies the conditioned air in
the bed2 zone.
It is worth mentioning here that in a residential building, the
diameter of the supply air duct in the internal zone is around
150–200 mm. The recommended supply duct air velocity in a res-
idential space is around 3 m/s to keep the noise at minimum level
[40]. In the current free cooling model developed in EnergyPlus,
the supply duct exit air flow rate in the bed2 zone is calculated as
0.0724 kg/s (Appendix A). At this flow rate, the velocity of the exit
air is 1.92 m/s for 200 mm diameter duct which is well below the
recommended level.
In both free cooling and passive cooling application cases, bed2
zone windows were open for natural ventilation and cooling when
the outdoor air temperature is less than 25 ◦ C. Once the outdoor
air goes over 25 ◦ C, the windows were closed to prevent the heat-
ing up of the indoor spaces. In free cooling application, the free
cooling unit only comes into operation once the indoor air tem-
 M. Alam et al. / Energy and Buildings 148 (2017) 238–256
Table 4
Boundary conditions used in the CFD model of the free cooling PCM unit.
Boundary location
Fluid domain (Air) Inlet
Outlet
Interface
Solid domain (PCM) Wall: Adiabatic wall
Interface
Interfaces Fluid-Solid interface
perature goes over 25 ◦ C. If the indoor air temperature is below
25 ◦ C, it is considered to be comfortable in the climatic conditions
of Melbourne, Australia.
5. Results
5.1. Passive and free cooling applications of 25 ◦ C melting point
BioPCM
Fig. 11 shows the Bed2 zone air temperatures for No-PCM, pas-
sive application and free cooling application of 25 ◦ C PCM during
the studied period in Melbourne. The figure shows that throughout
the period of 6 consecutive days, free cooling application resulted in
large temperature reduction compared to the passive method. This
is demonstrated by an average of 1.63 ◦ C reduction in peak zone air
temperature with a maximum reduction of 2.63 ◦ C during the stud-
ied period when PCM is utilized as a free cooling unit. On the other
hand, passive application of PCM resulted in only 0.24 ◦ C average
reduction in peak zone air temperature with a maximum reduc-
tion of 0.44 ◦ C. However, before reaching a stable conclusion, both
passive and free PCM application method should be investigated to
identify the factors that have potential impact on the effectiveness
of these two methods. To do that, the working cycle of PCM storage
in both application methods was analyzed.
Fig. 12 shows the temperature of the PCM and inner surface
temperature of the ceiling for the cases of with and without the
passive PCM application. The difference between the inner surface
temperatures of the ceiling for both cases is also presented in the
same plot. The figure shows that peak ceiling surface temperature
was reduced by an average of 0.68 ◦ C due to the passive application
of PCM with a maximum reduction of 1.67 ◦ C. However, as reported
earlier, the average reduction in peak zone temperature was only
around 0.24 ◦ C (maximum 0.44 ◦ C), which is substantially (65%)
lower compared to the average reduction of peak ceiling surface
temperature. This could be attributed to the fact that continuous
internal heat gains and air leakage that increased the indoor air
temperatures. Also, the heat transfer rate from the chilled ceiling
surface to the zone air may not be sufficient to influence the zone
air temperature. The figure also shows that PCM temperature var-
ied between 25 ◦ C to 35 ◦ C during the studied period although the
minimum outdoor air temperature reached below 23 ◦ C (i.e. com-
plete solidification temperature of the BioPCM used here) during
this period. This indicates that PCM was not completely solidified
at night and therefore was not able to completely exploit the latent
heat capacity.
The temperature distribution at a different position of the free
cooling unit with 25 ◦ C BioPCM is illustrated in Fig. 13. The average
peak temperature of the outlet air from the free cooling unit is 2.2 ◦ C
247
Boundary condition types and values
Normal Speed
Velocity = 5 m/s
Inlet temp = f (time)
Average Static Pressure
Relative pressure = 0 Pa
Pressure Profile Blend = 0.05
Average over whole outlet
No slip wall
Wall roughness = Smooth Wall
Heat transfer = Conservative interface flux
Heat transfer = Conservative interface flux
Conservative Interface flux
Interface model option = Thin material.
Material = Copper
Thickness = 1 mm
cooler than the inlet air during the studied period with a maximum
reduction of 3.12 ◦ C. As mentioned earlier, the average reduction in
peak zone air temperature due to free cooling is 1.63 ◦ C which is
only 26% lower compared to the reduction achieved in free cooling
unit. Hence, it can be said that free cooling application method more
effectively utilizes the cooling capacity of the PCM than the passive
method. Fig. 13 also shows the temperature of PCM in the free cool-
ing unit. Here, the calculated volume average temperature of the
PCM domain is taken as the PCM temperature. In first three days,
the PCM was partially melting during the day but not completely
solidifying at night. During last three days, the PCM was completely
solidified due to the lower outdoor air temperature (compared to
other days). It should be noted from Fig. 13 that, although maxi-
mum outdoor temperature on 28th of February and 3rd of March
was similar, the reduction in temperature by the free cooling unit
was higher for the latter case. This is because the outdoor temper-
ature during the early morning of 3rd of March was favorable to
completely solidify the PCM whereas the PCM was in the partially
melted stage during the early morning of 28th of February. The
completely solidified PCM resulted in higher temperature reduc-
tion on 3rd of March. Hence, choice of PCM melting range largely
depends on the outdoor air temperature and appropriate selection
of PCM melting temperature could lead to better performance in
the free cooling method.
It must be noted that the present study assumes that there was
no heat and pressure loss in the duct of the free cooling system.
Insufficient or poorly installed duct insulation and leaks in the duct
system can reduce the efficiency of free cooling application method.
These issues will be considered in the future study.
In attempting to improve the passive PCM application method,
the surface area of PCM was increased by installing Bio-PCM in
ceilings and walls rather than considering just ceiling. It is also evi-
dent that from previous studies [3,16] that spreading of an equal
amount of PCM to ceilings and walls instead of integrating it only in
ceilings increases the melting and solidification efficiency of PCM
due to enhanced heat transfer surface area, which in turn increases
the effectiveness of PCM. A similar approach was adopted here to
further improve the performance of passive PCM application. The
same amount of PCM was spread into ceiling and external walls
of the BED2 zone, and results are depicted in Fig. 14. The Fig. 14
shows that the reduction in peak zone air temperature in passive
application case with PCM spread to walls and ceiling is still lower
than the reductions achieved in the free cooling application.
5.2. Effect of night ventilation
The night ventilation (NV) is also reported to be an effective
supporting strategy to enhance the performance of passive PCM
248 M. Alam et al. / Energy and Buildings 148 (2017) 238–256

Fig. 11. Bed2 zone temperature during typical summer weather in Melbourne.

Fig. 12. Performance of passive cooling application during typical summer.

application [41]. Night ventilation can be operated with a mechan-
ical fan to supply outdoor air inside the zone or simply via opening
the windows (known as natural ventilation). In this section, night
ventilation through a mechanical fan has been considered.
The mechanical ventilation was applied in BED2 zone to at the
rate of 8 ACH from 19:00 to 07:00. Fig. 15 shows the effect of night
ventilation in enhancing the effectiveness of passive PCM appli-
cation. During the studied period, the average reduction in daily
peak zone temperature with night ventilation was 0.33 ◦ C with
a maximum reduction of 0.63 ◦ C. As mentioned in the previous
section, these values are 0.24 ◦ C and 0.44 ◦ C, respectively, with-
out night ventilation. The effectiveness of passive PCM improved
further when PCM was spread to walls and ceiling and night ven-
tilation was operated. In this case, the average reduction in daily
peak zone temperature was 0.41 ◦ C with a maximum reduction of
0.91 ◦ C. However, Fig. 15 shows that despite the application of dif-
ferent supporting strategies to improve the performance of passive
application method, the effectiveness of free cooling PCM method
is still higher than the passive cooling method.
5.3. Effect of natural ventilation schedule
This section investigated the influence of natural ventilation
schedule on the effectiveness of passive and free cooling application
 M. Alam et al. / Energy and Buildings 148 (2017) 238–256 249

Fig. 13. Performance of Free cooling unit during typical summer.

Fig. 14. BED2 zone temperature with no PCM, PCM spread in walls and ceiling and free cooling cases.

of PCM. The influence of two different natural ventilation schedules
was compared:
1) Natural ventilation schedule 1: Open the windows if
Todb < 25 ◦ C
2) Natural ventilation schedule 2: Open the windows if
Tzone − Todb > 2 ◦ C
The natural ventilation schedule 1 states that the windows of
the house are open when the outdoor dry bulb temperature is
lower than the 25 ◦ C and was used in all the analysis that have been
presented in previous sections of this paper. In natural ventilation
schedule 2, the windows are open when the outdoor dry bulb tem-
perature is 2 ◦ C cooler than indoor zone temperature. Fig. 16 shows
the Bed2 zone air temperatures for no-PCM, passive application and
free cooling application of 25 ◦ C PCM in Melbourne with ventilation
schedule 2. The figure shows that, throughout the period, free cool-
ing application resulted in large temperature reduction compared
to the passive cooling application. However, from the comparison
of Fig. 11 and Fig. 16, it can be observed that the average degree
of reduction with ventilation schedule 2 are lower than that with
ventilation schedule 1 in both passive and free cooling PCM appli-
cations. In the case of ventilation schedule 2, the average degree
of reduction for free cooling and passive cooling cases are 0.93 ◦ C
250 M. Alam et al. / Energy and Buildings 148 (2017) 238–256

Fig. 15. BED2 zone temperatures of various passive PCM applications with night ventilation and free cooling cases.

Fig. 16. Bed2 zone temperature during typical summer weather in Melbourne with ventilation schedule 2.

and 0.1 ◦ C, respectively, compared to 1.63 ◦ C and 0.24 ◦ C with ven-
tilation schedule 1. This is demonstrated by an average of 0.93 ◦ C
reduction in peak zone air temperature with a maximum reduction
of 2.78 ◦ C during the studied period when PCM is utilized as a free
cooling unit. On the other hand, passive application of PCM resulted
in only 0.1 ◦ C average reduction in peak zone air temperature with
a maximum reduction of 0.45 ◦ C. This can be attributed to the lower
Bed2 zone temperature for a no-PCM case with ventilation sched-
ule 2 compared to that of ventilation schedule 1 as shown in Fig. 17.
On average, the peak Bed2 zone temperature for ventilation sched-
ule 2 is 0.74 ◦ C lower than that for ventilation schedule 1 with a
maximum reduction of 1.7 ◦ C. The decrease in zone temperature,
due to the change in ventilation schedule, reduced the scope of PCM
to reduce the zone temperature further.
It can be concluded from above analysis that irrespective of
ventilation schedule, the free cooling method results in a higher
reduction of zone temperature than passive application method of
PCM; although, the magnitude of reduction varies with ventilation
schedule. Also, to reduce the zone air temperature to increase ther-
mal comfort level, one should ensure appropriate ventilation of the
house before considering other measures.
 M. Alam et al. / Energy and Buildings 148 (2017) 238–256
Fig. 17. Bed2 zone temperature during typical summer weather in Melbourne with different ventilation schedule.
5.4. Optimum PCM melting point
To determine the optimum PCM melting range for both passive
and free cooling applications, the parametric analysis was carried
out using three different PCM melting temperatures. The thermal
properties of the explored PCMs were presented in Table 5. Fig. 18
shows the effect of PCM temperature on the performance of pas-
sive and free cooling application methods. The figure shows that
in passive application method, the 27 ◦ C PCM performed better
compared to other two PCMs during the studied period. The aver-
age reduction of peak bed2 zone temperature was 0.12 ◦ C, 0.24 ◦ C
and 0.58 ◦ C for 23 ◦ C, 25 ◦ C, and 27 ◦ C PCM respectively. This was
because the latent heat capacity of 27 ◦ C PCM was utilized more
effectively in this condition through regular melting and solidifica-
tion which resulted in a much higher reduction in ceiling surface
temperature compared to other two PCMs as shown in Table 6.
However, the average reduction in zone temperature is much lower
than the average reduction in ceiling surface temperature by 27 ◦ C
PCM. The significant reduction in ceiling surface temperature with
PCM was not realized in the reduced zone temperature. Further
research is required to overcome this barrier in passive applica-
tion method. A recent study showed that user behavior relating
to the operation of windows and doors of PCM applied zone plays
a significant role in the performance of passive PCM application
[16].
In the free cooling method, no single PCM resulted in maxi-
mum peak zone temperature reduction during the studied period.
The 23 ◦ C PCM resulted in maximum zone temperature reduction
on 26th February and during 1st to 3rd of March whereas 25 ◦ C
PCM showed better performance on 27th and 28th of February.
Fig. 19(a) shows that from 1st to 3rd of March, 23 ◦ C PCM was
undergoing regular melting and solidification which resulted in
better utilization of latent heat capacity of the free cooling unit. On
the other hand, the 25 ◦ C PCM (Fig. 13) and 27 ◦ C PCM (Fig. 19(b))
remained mostly solidified and only partially melted during the
daytime which resulted in comparatively lower utilization of the
latent heat capacity of the free cooling unit. On 28th of February,
the 23 ◦ C PCM was melted completely early in the day absorbing
251
the required latent heat. After complete melting of PCM, the further
heat was absorbed as sensible heat storage. As a result, heat storage
rate of 23 ◦ C PCM was reduced which resulted in a lower reduction
in inlet air temperature on that day compared to 25 ◦ C PCM. How-
ever, overall, 23 ◦ C PCM performed better compared to other two
PCMs in the free cooling application. The average reduction of peak
bed2 zone temperature in free cooling method was 1.68 ◦ C, 1.63 ◦ C
and 1.45 ◦ C for 23 ◦ C, 25 ◦ C, and 27 ◦ C PCMs respectively during the
studied period. This is in contrast to the results obtained for passive
cooling application where 27 ◦ C PCM resulted in a higher reduction
of peak bed2 zone temperature.
It is evident from the above analysis that optimum PCM tem-
perature for maximum reduction in indoor air temperature is
different for different PCM application methods such as passive
and free cooling. To understand this phenomenon, the parame-
ters that influence melting and solidification of PCM in these two
application methods were investigated. In the case of passive appli-
cation of PCM in ceilings, melting and solidification of PCM are more
dependent on indoor zone temperature instead of outdoor temper-
ature [16]. The attic zone temperature does not influence the PCM
temperature as it is separated by R4.0 insulation in this building.
Hence, there might be a relationship between indoor zone temper-
ature and optimum PCM temperature. To reveal this relationship,
the bed2 zone temperature without the installation of PCM was
calculated (using EnergyPlus model) and averaged for the studied
period (26th February to 3rd of March). The average bed2 zone
temperature with no PCM was 27.3 ◦ C which is very close to the
highest performing PCM temperature of 27 ◦ C. This result also coin-
cides with findings of Pieppo et al. [42] which stated that optimum
PCM melting point for passive application method should be within
1–3 ◦ C of average room temperature.
In the case of free cooling case, the outdoor air is passed through
the free cooling unit and therefore, the melting and solidification
of PCM depend on the outdoor air temperature. In this study, the
average outdoor air temperature for the studied period was 23.4 ◦ C
which is very close to the highest performing PCM temperature of
23 ◦ C for the free cooling application. This result also agrees with
findings of Medved and Arker [43] that the optimum PCM has a
252 M. Alam et al. / Energy and Buildings 148 (2017) 238–256

Table 5
Thermal properties of the PCMs used in parametric analysis.

PCM Complete Complete Specific Heat Latent Heat Thermal

solidification point melting point (J kg−1 K−1 ) (J kg−1 ) Conductivity
(Wm−1 K−1 )

23 ◦ C 21 ◦ C 25 ◦ C 1970 200000 0.2

25 ◦ C 23 ◦ C 27 ◦ C 1970 200000 0.2
27 ◦ C 25 ◦ C 29 ◦ C 1970 200000 0.2

Fig. 18. Effect of PCM melting point on peak bed2 zone temperature reduction.

Table 6
Peak reduction in ceiling surface temperature by Passive application of three different PCMs.

PCM Reduction of peak ceiling surface temperature (◦ C)

Feb-26 Feb-27 Feb-28 Mar-01 Mar-02 Mar-03 Average

23 ◦ C 0.268 0.319 0.359 0.929 0.280 0.215 0.395

25 ◦ C 0.403 0.447 0.407 1.674 0.805 0.353 0.681
27 ◦ C 1.426 1.374 0.705 2.502 3.538 1.511 1.843

melting temperature that is approximately equal to the average
ambient air temperature in the summer months.
5.5. Different climate zones
To investigate the influence of different climate zones on the
effectiveness of passive and free cooling applications, the simu-
lation models were run using the climate zones of Brisbane and
Sydney. According to Building Code of Australia (BCA), Australia has
eight major climate zones [44]. Brisbane falls under climate zone 2
which has sub-tropical warm, humid summer and mild winter. On
the other hand, Sydney falls under warm temperate climate zone
5.
Fig. 20 shows the Bed2 zone air temperatures for No-PCM, pas-
sive application and free cooling application of 25 ◦ C PCM during
the studied period in Brisbane. The figure shows that free cool-
ing application resulted in large temperature reduction compared
to the passive cooling application which is similar to the results
obtained for the climate zone of Melbourne. The average reduction
in peak zone temperature for free cooling case was 1.24 ◦ C with a
maximum of 1.9 ◦ C. On the other hand, passive application of PCM
resulted in only 0.08 ◦ C average reduction in peak zone air tempera-
ture with a maximum reduction of 0.12 ◦ C. However, it is also noted
that during 2nd and 3rd of March, both the passive and free cooling
application of PCM were ineffective. This is because, on those days,
the free cooling system was not running as the indoor temperature
was lower than 25 ◦ C. The passive cooling system was not effective
as the indoor temperature was not sufficient to melt the PCM.
Fig. 21 shows the Bed2 zone air temperatures for No-PCM, pas-
sive application and free cooling application of 25 ◦ C PCM during
the studied period in Sydney. Similar trends were also observed
for the climate zone of Sydney. Here the average reduction in zone
temperature due to the application of free cooling PCM was 1.8 ◦ C
with a maximum of 2.57 ◦ C. For passive application case, the aver-
age reduction in zone temperature was 0.2 ◦ C with a maximum
of 0.6 ◦ C. Hence, it can be concluded from the above observations
that irrespective of the climate zone, the free cooling application
of PCM results in higher reduction in zone temperature compared
with passive application case.
 M. Alam et al. / Energy and Buildings 148 (2017) 238–256 253

Fig. 19. Temperature distribution at different position of free cooling unit with (a) 23 ◦ C PCM and (b) 27 ◦ C PCM.

6. Discussions ceiling, using night ventilation and changing natural ventilation

This research compared the effectiveness of passive and free
cooling application of PCM when applied to a duplex brick veneer
building in Melbourne. It was observed that during the studied
period, free cooling application method is more effective than pas-
sive application method in reducing the peak zone temperature.
Drawing on the lessons learned from existing literature [3,16], sev-
eral supporting strategies (spreading passive PCM to walls and
schedule) was also employed to enhance the performance of pas-
sive PCM application method. The supporting strategies improved
the performance of passive PCM method but were still lower than
the performance of the free cooling method. A similar trend was
also observed when the performance of passive and free cooling
method was simulated under different climate zones.
Earlier studies [3,13,14,41–43] also showed that selection of
optimum PCM melting point is important to maximize its effec-
254 M. Alam et al. / Energy and Buildings 148 (2017) 238–256

Fig. 20. Bed2 zone temperature during typical summer weather in Brisbane.

Fig. 21. Bed2 zone temperature during typical summer weather in Sydney.

tiveness. Parametric analysis with different PCM melting points for Before translating this results to other building types, following
both passive and free cooling methods showed that in passive appli- points should be considered:
cation method of PCM, the optimum PCM temperature should be
selected as equal or close to the average of indoor zone tempera-
1) The effectiveness of passive PCM application also depends on
ture. In the free cooling method, the optimum PCM temperature
building design (e.g. orientation, window location, etc.) and con-
should be selected as equal to the average of outdoor air tempera-
struction materials (brick, timber etc). The current study only
ture. The present study also revealed that effectiveness of passive
considered a particular building type, and the variations in build-
PCM application with optimum melting point (27 ◦ C) is still lower
ing structure were not studied
than the effectiveness of free cooling application with lowest per-
2) Free cooling application depends on the design of the PCM heat
forming PCM (27 ◦ C). These results demonstrate the superiority of
exchanger unit. The poor design of heat exchanger might result
free cooling application method over passive application method.
in lower efficiency than the passive method.
 M. Alam et al. / Energy and Buildings 148 (2017) 238–256
It is possible to design a building in a number of different ways
and so is the PCM heat exchanger unit. However, it is beyond the
scope of this research to study different building type and heat
exchanger design. This study highlights the importance of consider-
ing different PCM application methods for a particular building type
rather than choosing one method arbitrarily. The study provides a
methodology to compare and select the best application method for
a certain building type. It has also opened up new research direction
on PCM integration in buildings. Further study is recommended to
carry out a similar comparative study for different building types
and heat exchangers units.
The present study was carried out for six consecutive days for
the representation of summer climatic conditions. Whole year sim-
ulation was not possible at this time due to the limitations in the
computational capacity of numerical models. However, the author
acknowledges that full year simulation can provide a more com-
prehensive comparison of this two methods.
7. Conclusions
This research has compared the performance of passive and free
cooling PCM application methods when applied in a residential
building to reduce indoor zone air temperature. The comparative
study was carried out using validated building simulation mod-
els of the selected duplex house for both passive and free cooling
cases. In both cases, approximately 58 kg of PCM was used. The
results showed that the free cooling application of PCM resulted in a
significantly higher reduction of peak zone temperature compared
to passive application case. Despite the use of several supporting
strategies to improve the performance of passive PCM application,
its effectiveness in reducing the peak zone temperature was always
found to be lower than the free cooling method. In passive PCM
application case, although the temperature of the PCM-containing
surface reduces significantly compared to no PCM case, this is not
reflected in the reduction of zone temperature. Further research
is required to increase the effectiveness of passive application
method including research on enhancing heat transfer from chilled
PCM containing surface to surrounding zone and effective utiliza-
tion of latent heat capacity of PCM through regular melting and
solidification.
Parametric analysis using three different PCM melting tem-
peratures showed that optimum PCM temperature for maximum
reduction of indoor zone temperature is different for passive and
free cooling cases. The analysis showed that optimum PCM tem-
perature for passive application is equal to the average indoor zone
temperature where the PCM is intended to be installed. In the case
of free cooling, optimum PCM temperature is close to the aver-
age outdoor temperature of the climate zone where the house is
situated.
This comparative study provided an understanding of the effec-
tiveness of passive and free cooling PCM application methods in
residential buildings as well as selection criteria for selecting opti-
mum PCM temperature for both cases. The outcome of this study
would be helpful in selecting the best application methods in resi-
dential buildings.
Acknowledgement
Authors would like to acknowledge “Climate Adaptation Engi-
neering for Extreme Events” flagship cluster of CSIRO for funding
the research project.
Appendix A
The mass flow rate of air through each free cooling unit is
255
= Area × velocity × density of air
=3.14 × (0.0392/2)2 × 5 × 1.2
= 0.00724 kg/s
Total mass flow rate through supply air duct when 10 free cool-
ing unit is used = 10 × 0.00724 = 0.0724 kg/s
If we consider the diameter of supply air duct as 200 mm then
velocity of air at the exit of the supply air duct becomes = Total mass
flow rate/(density of air × Area of the duct)
= 0.0724/(1.2 × 3.14 × 0.22 /4)
= 1.92 m/s
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