Construction and Building Materials 262 (2020) 120481

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Construction and Building Materials

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

Adaptive building roof by coupling thermochromic material and phase

change material: Energy performance under different climate conditions
Jianying Hu a,⇑, Xiong (Bill) Yu b,⇑
a
School of Transportation, Southeast University, Southeast University Road #2, Nanjing 211189, China
b
Department of Civil Engineering, Case Western Reserve University, 2104 Adelbert Road, Bingham 206, Cleveland, OH 44106, USA

h i g h l i g h t s

 Adaptive building roof, integrated with TC coating and/or PCM layer, is proposed as an energy saving strategy.
 TC/PCM roof saves up to 17% of total energy use for the building, especially under mild climate.
 The PCM layer is recommended to place inside the roof insulation.
 The 5-fold increase in thickness of PCM layer leads to 25% of total energy saving of the building.
 The 5-fold increase in thickness of TC coating yields 27% of total energy saving of the building.

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

Article history: Energy transfer in and out through the building envelope plays a prominent role in determining the
Received 7 September 2019 energy consumption of a building. This study proposes a new paradigm to enhance the energy efficiency
Received in revised form 27 July 2020 of buildings by designing adaptive building roofs that embrace dynamic responses to the fluctuating cli-
Accepted 4 August 2020
matic conditions. Adaptive building roof is designed by integrating with thermochromic (TC) coating and/
or phase change material (PCM) layer, namely TC roof, PCM roof, and TC/PCM roof, which could intelli-
gently control both solar energy absorption/reflection and thermal energy transfer in the building.
Keywords:
EnergyPlus simulation is implemented to investigate the potential use of adaptive roofs for the building
TC coating
PCM layer
energy saving under five different climatic conditions. The simulation results show that compared to tra-
Adaptive building roof ditional asphalt roof, the TC roof, PCM roof, TC/PCM roof reach total energy saving of up to 13%, 15%, and
Energy saving 17%, respectively. It is also found that TC/PCM roof shows seasonal control of building energy consump-
Sensitivity analysis tion. The sensitivity analysis reveals that when using TC/PCM roof, placing the PCM layer outside the roof
Climate zones insulation has more energy load reduction potential whereas the increase in thickness of PCM layer and
TC coating contributes to limited improvement of energy efficiency in the building. Furthermore, adap-
tive roof is found to perform the best for the building located in the mild climate region. The methodology
presented in this study will guide the design of adaptive roof for energy efficient buildings in different
climate zones.
Ó 2020 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

1. Introduction of energy use since it is the interface between external environ-

Buildings account for approximate 40% of global energy con-
sumption, where nearly half of this energy is used for space heat-
ing and cooling [1]. In China, the energy consumption in buildings
is rapidly increasing, which is expected to be increased from cur-
rent 27.6% to 35% by 2020 [2,3]. The building envelope, including
walls and roof, has an important role in the regulation and control
⇑ Corresponding authors.
E-mail addresses: jianyinghu@seu.edu.cn (J. Hu), xxy21@case.edu (Xiong (Bill)
Yu).
mental condition and the interior demands of occupants [4]. Due
to this decisive role, strategies have been proposed to improve
thermal performance of building envelope, and therefore to
enhance energy efficiency and thermal comfort of the building.
For instance, strongly insulated envelopes are used with the aim
of containing heat losses in the cold season and preventing heat
gains by solar radiation in the hot season [5–7]. Additionally, high
albedo material, characterized with high solar reflectance and high
thermal emittance, is able to lower absorbed solar heat gain and
increase the heat released to the environment. Cool roof with high
albedo material has been demonstrated to reduce cooling energy

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2020.120481
0950-0618/Ó 2020 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
J. Hu, Xiong (Bill) Yu Construction and Building Materials 262 (2020) 120481

Fig. 1. (a) Change of molecular structures of TC pigment with temperature; (b) Photo of TC coating, (b) Reflectance spectra of asphalt roof with TC coating at different
temperatures.

consumption by up to 48% for buildings in different locations [8–
10]. However, the existing solutions to energy-related challenges
tend to have a static building envelope, which is not designed for
adaption to varied environment and climate.
Adaptive envelope, inspired by plant adaption, is one that
responds to changing environmental conditions both interior and
exterior while regulating the indoor environment [11]. The build-
ing envelope is constructed, not traditional inert surfaces, but with
a wide range of smart materials. Smart materials are substances
that have dynamic properties that react to changes in their envi-
ronment. According to Addington [12], smart materials are classi-
fied into two groups: property change materials that change one
of their properties (chemical, mechanical, optical, electrical, mag-
netic, or thermal) in response to a change in environmental condi-
tions, and energy exchange materials that transfer energy from one
form to another desired state (i.e., photovoltaics, thermoelectrics,
and photoelectrics). Among them, thermochromic (TC) materials
with dynamic optical properties and phase change materials
(PCM) with latent heat capacity have great potential to achieve
great energy efficiency in buildings.

Table 1
Optical data of building roofs for the building simulations.

Roof Solar absorptance Visible absorptance

Traditional roof 0.94 0.96
8 8
TC roof < 0:82; T 6 0  C; < 0:94; T 6 0  C;
0:8449 0:00274T; 0  C < T < 40  C 0:9927 0:0062T; 0  C < T < 40  C
: :
0:74; T P 40  C 0:75; T P 40  C

where T is the surface temperature of the material.

2
J. Hu, Xiong (Bill) Yu Construction and Building Materials 262 (2020) 120481

Fig. 2. (a) 5 mm thick Energain PCM board, (b) thermal conductivity and enthalpy of the PCM.

[13]. Karlessi et al. [14] has fabricated thermochromic (TC) coating

Fig. 3. Schematic principle of a building with TC/PCM roof that illustrates solar
reflectance/ absorptance and heat transfer: (a) during the hot or summer season, (b)
during the cold or winter season.
Thermochromic (TC) material is capable of reversibly changing
optical properties in response to a temperature variation. It could
modulate solar heat gain of the building by dynamically managing
solar energy, i.e., limiting undesired solar heat gain during the hot
seasons and allowing more solar heat gain during the cold seasons
by embedding organic TC pigment into polymer matrix, which
exhibits temperature-dependent solar reflectance. It has found that
TC coating is 6–10 °C cooler than conventional colored coatings in
summer. TC coating has been widely applied into traditional win-
dow, forming thermochromic (TC) glazing [15–17]. TC glazing
exhibits temperature dependent optical transmittance, modulating
the visible and solar spectrum differently below and above the crit-
ical temperature of TC coating. Studies have demonstrated TC glaz-
ing presents extinguished energy saving potential for buildings
[16–22]. The influence of climate zones on energy performance
of TC glazing was also investigated [23]. In addition to windows,
roof is one of main building components which is responsible for
22% of total energy consumption in buildings [24]. TC roof is for-
mulated by integrating TC coating with building roof [25]. It has
been demonstrated to benefit the mitigation of urban heat island
[26]. The authors [27] have explored the energy efficiency of the
building with TC roof. It has concluded that for the buildings
located in the warm climatic regions in the United States, the use
of TC roof can potentially lead to up to 18% total energy saving
and up to 32% reduction in CO2 emission. Hence, TC roof with
dynamic optical properties, has been proved to gain energy saving
potential in the building. However, extremely limited study has
reported on the performance of adaptive building roof that dis-
plays both variable optical properties and thermal energy storage
capability.

10 mm TC coating
15 mm asphalt shingle
25 mm roof insulation
5 mm PCM layer
50 mm concrete

Fig. 4. Schematic of the room modelled in EnergyPlus.

3
J. Hu, Xiong (Bill) Yu Construction and Building Materials 262 (2020) 120481

Table 2
Thermal and optical properties of materials for the building envelope.

Property Concrete Wall insulation Roof insulation Gypsum Asphalt shingle TC coating
Thickness (m) 0.2 (wall), 0.1 (floor), 0.05 (roof) 0.05 0.025 0.01 0.015 0.01
Conductivity (W/(m
K)) 1.7296 0.0432 0.049 0.16 1.5 0.16
Density (kg/m3) 2247 91 265 785 2500 1121
Specific heat (J/(kg
K) 837 837 836 830 2100 1460
Thermal absorptance 0.9 0.9 0.9 0.9 0.9 0.9
Solar absorptance 0.65 0.5 0.7 0.4 0.94 –
Visible absorptance 0.65 0.5 0.7 0.4 0.96 –

Phase change materials (PCMs) have the capacity to store heat
from solar radiation, which are one promising technique to
enhance energy efficiency of the building. During the day, the
PCMs in building envelope absorb the input heat into the building
and lead to lower cooling load. At night, when air becomes cold,
the PCMs freeze and dispense the heat they stored during the
day, towards the internal and external environment, and curtail
heating load [28–31]. Over the several decades, the integration of
the PCMs into the building envelope, such as on the roof [32], on
the floor [33] and in walls [34] is of great interest for both space
heating and cooling in buildings. Studies demonstrate that PCM
walls reduce the interior temperature of the building by 1–2 °C
[35]. This results in 24% lower cooling energy demand and
10–30% lower heating energy demand [36]. Numerous studies
have revealed that the efficiency of PCM wall depends on
numerous factors [37]: (1) location in the wall [38–40]; (2) the vol-
ume and thermophysical properties [39]; (3) the phase-change
temperature range [37,38,41]; (4) the latent heat capacity; (5)
the climatic conditions; (6) internal solar gains; (7) reflectivity
and orientation of the surfaces; (8) ventilation rates; (9) HVAC con-
trols, and (10) building structure. For instance, the location of PCM
in a wall was found to affect PCM’s state (not-melted state,
partially-melted state, and fully-melted state) during the cooling
period, and as a result, to influence thermal performance improve-
ment of building walls [42]. The use of PCM on interior surfaces of
the building caused a time lag between the maximum energy con-
sumption and the maximum heating load of the room [43]. It is
suggested to place the PCM near the outer surface of the walls, if
its heat of fusion, melting temperature and thickness is high, and
near the inner surface when the interior surface temperature
increases [44]. The review by Song et al. [45] stated that phase
change temperature of PCM for the building’s envelope is between
10 °C and 39 °C. Furthermore, the combination of two melting
points in one zone results in higher thermal comfort and energy
efficiency by PCMs [46]. In tropical climate (e.g. Singapore), a thin
layer of PCM near the exterior surface of the wall showed the best
thermal performance and is more cost beneficial [47]. Research
also found that installing PCMs on south and west walls is more
cost effective and the integration of PCMs with highly insulated
Table 3
Five cities representing different climate zone in China.
City Climate condition Air temperature Incident solar
range (°C) radiation (kWh/m2)
Beijing Cold 14.0–37.4 2401–4690
Heilongjiang Severe cold 28.7–32.8 1664–5766
Nanjing Hot summer and 5.6–37.2 1842–3034
cold winter
Guangzhou Hot summer and 6.0–37.0 483–3189
warm winter
Kunming Mild 2.1–30.2 1730–4697
4
wall results in lower savings in cooling energy [48]. PCM system
was found to store heat up to eight hours after solar irradiation
and thickness of the PCM depends on thermal load of buildings
[49]. In addition to wall, PCM is integrated into building windows
for energy efficiency of the building in a semiarid climate [50].
Therefore, the performance of PCM wall is correlated with different
variables.
This study aims to explore energy saving potential of an office
building with TC roof and/or PCM roof, referred as solar- and
thermo-responsive adaptive roof, under five climates in China.
EnergyPlus simulation is performed to calculate the annual and
monthly heating and cooling loads. Moreover, the analysis com-
pares performance of adaptive building roof with that of tradi-
tional roof. Additionally, a sensitivity study is conducted to
assess how energy savings of adaptive roof vary with the location
and thickness of PCM layer, and thickness of TC coating for each cli-
mate. This study provides guideline for the optimization of adap-
tive building roof with TC roof and PCM roof for different climate
zones in China.
2. Methodology
2.1. Design of TC/PCM roof
Thermochromic (TC) roof is designed by covering asphalt shin-
gle with thermochromic (TC) coating. TC pigment used in this
study exhibits dark color below the transition temperature of
around 31 °C, and light color above the transition temperature.
Fig. 1(a) illustrates the molecular structure of TC pigment and its
change with temperature. The physical properties of TC pigment
have been described in previous studies [51,52]. TC coating is fab-
ricated by adding 5% TC pigment powder into polyvinyl chloride
(PVC), shown in Fig. 1(b). The temperature-dependent reflectance
spectra of asphalt roof with TC coating in the wavelength of 300–
1800 nm are characterized by a Cary 6000i UV–Vis-IR spectropho-
tometer with a DRA integrating sphere, displayed in Fig. 1(c). Based
on the spectral reflectance data, solar reflectance of TC roof is cal-
culated using weighted-averaging method (ASTM E903-96) [53]. It
has found that as temperature rises, solar reflectance of TC roof
increases from 18% to 26% and the reflectance in the visible range
is between 6 and 25% for TC roof. Based on reflectance values at dif-
ferent temperatures, the absorptance (1-solar reflectance) of TC
coating as a function of temperature is derived using the linear fit-
ting approach, summarized in Table 1.
In the present study, the Energain PCM board produced from
DuPont (Fig. 2(a)) is integrated into the building roof as a PCM roof.
This material, consisting of 60% paraffin microcapsules, has a non-
linear enthalpy-temperature function, a melting temperature
range centered at 21.7 °C, a latent heat of 70 kJ/kg, a density of
855 kg/m3, a specific heat of 2500 J/(kg∙K) and a variable thermal
conductivity [54,55] (Fig. 2(b)).
J. Hu, Xiong (Bill) Yu Construction and Building Materials 262 (2020) 120481

Fig. 5. Monthly statistics for the air temperature and solar radiation in five different climates: (a) Beijing, (b) Heilongjiang, (c) Nanjing, (d) Guangzhou, (e) Kunming.

In principle, with the characteristics of thermochromic (TC)

Table 4
Variations of parameters used for the analysis.
Variables
Types of building envelope
Location of PCM layer
Thickness of PCM layer
Thickness of TC coating in
roof
material and phase change material (PCM), TC coating exhibits
dynamic response to solar radiation and PCM layer is capable of
Range adapting to environmental temperature, as showm in Fig. 3. During
hot or summer season, TC coating features higher solar reflectance
Traditional roof, TC roof, PCM roof, TC/PCM
roof and thus reflects more solar energy; during cold or winter season,
inside and outside of the roof insulation TC coating exhibits higher solar absorptance and absorbs more
5 mm, 25 mm solar energy. Meanwhile, during the day, PCM layer absorbs extra
10 mm, 50 mm thermal energy; during the night, PCM layer releases the stored
energy into the indoor and outdoor environment. Hence, the build-
ing with TC/PCM roof is adaptive to daily and seasonal change in

5
J. Hu, Xiong (Bill) Yu
Fig. 6. Performance of the building with various types of building roof in five climates: (a) cooling load, (b) heating load, (c) total energy consumption.
environment, facilitating thermal comfort and energy efficiency in
different climates.
2.2. Building energy simulations
Energy simulation is carried out on a typical office building with
TC/PCM roof (Fig. 4) using EnergyPlus 8.9.0. The office has a height
of 3 m and a total floor area of 25 m2. The roof is composed of
10 mm TC coating as the outside layer, 15 mm asphalt shingle,
25 mm roof insulation, 5 mm PCM layer, and 50 mm concrete.
The wall is composed, from outside to inside, of 200 mm concrete,
50 mm wall insulation, and 10 mm gypsum. The thermo-physical
and optical properties of used materials are summarized in Table 2.
All walls and roof of the room are assumed to be exposed to out-
door environment. In the model, two 1 m  1 m glass windows
with Window-to-Wall Ratio of 0.33% are located on the northern
and southern walls of the room.
Regarding internal heat gains, the office room is occupied by
eight persons (0.32 people/m2), a primary air ventilation rate of
0.0203 m3/s. Lighting accounts for 64 W/m2 and electric equip-
ment contributes to 48 W/m2. HVAC system consisted of direct
cooling and heating with natural gas. The heating set-point is set
at 20 °C and the cooling set-point is set at 26 °C respectively, which
are scheduled for all days. All cooling and heating capacities were
auto-sized to design day conditions corresponding with ASHRAE
climate zones. Time step of the simulation was set to 10 min.
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Construction and Building Materials 262 (2020) 120481
2.3. Climates
This research aims to study the energy performance of adaptive
roof with TC/PCM roof and to find the optimal configuration in dif-
ferent locations around the world. Therefore, five cities represent-
ing five major climates are considered [56], including Beijing,
Heilongjiang, Nanjing, Guangzhou, and Kunming. The weather data
for each city is derived from EnergyPlus climate file database, sum-
marized in Table 3 and Fig. 5. It is noticed that Heilongjiang has the
coldest winter season with the lowest winter temperature of
28.7 °C and lowest average temperature of 18.7 °C in the year,
where space heating is dominant. Guangzhou has a higher temper-
ature ranging from 6.0 to 37.0 °C throughout the year, where cool-
ing is primarily required. For Beijing and Nanjing, both heating and
cooling are required, however, due to the fact that Kunming has a
mild climate, heating and cooling energy demands are negligibly at
some periods. In terms of incident solar radiation, it is obvious that
the highest solar radiation is incident during April, June, May,
November, and March in Beijing, Heilongjiang, Nanjing, Guangz-
hou, and Kunming, respectively, which affect solar heat gain in
the buildings through building envelope.
2.4. Sensitivity analysis
To optimize the design of adaptive building roof, a sensitivity
analysis on energy load of the room is conducted. The parameters
and their variations in the sensitivity analysis is given in Table 4.
J. Hu, Xiong (Bill) Yu
(c)
Fig. 7. Monthly energy consumption of the building with three types of roof in Nanjing: (a) traditional roof, (b) TC roof, (c) PCM roof, (d) TC/PCM roof.
Firstly, three types of building roof are evaluated and compared,
including traditional asphalt roof, TC roof, and the combination
of TC roof and PCM roof (TC/PCM roof). Secondly, the location of
PCM layer is varied at the interior or the exterior of the roof insu-
lation. Thirdly, the thickness of PCM layer in TC/PCM roof is
increased from 5 mm to 25 mm. Finally, the thickness of TC coating
in TC/PCM roof is varied from 10 mm to 50 mm. In the simulation,
only one parameter is changed each time while the other parame-
ters are held at the base case values. Thus, the influence of each
parameter is presented as percentage changes of energy
performance.
3. Results and discussion
A series of simulation is conducted to investigate the effective-
ness of adaptive building roof integrated with thermochromic (TC)
coating and PCM board by comparing with traditional building roof
in different regions in China. Influence of location and thickness of
PCM board as well as thickness of TC coating on energy perfor-
mance of the room is also analyzed.
3.1. Impact on annual energy loads
Fig. 6 presents the annual heating, cooling and total energy
demands of a typical office room with three types of building roof
in five Chinese climate locations. It is observed from Fig. 6(a) that
7
Construction and Building Materials 262 (2020) 120481
(d)
adaptive building roof with TC roof and PCM roof is effective in
reducing cooling energy consumption of the building in all sites.
In comparison with traditional roof, the use of TC roof leads to
cooling energy saving of 7.7 kWh/m2 (10%), 5.1 kWh/m2 (12%),
8.2 kWh/m2 (8%), 10.6 kWh/m2 (7%), and 9.7 kWh/m2 (16%) for
the building in Beijing, Heilongjiang, Nanjing, Guangdong, and
Kunming, respectively while the application of PCM roof yields
cooling energy saving of 1.7 kWh/m2 (2%), 1.2 kWh/m2 (3%),
1.8 kWh/m2 (2%), 2.0 kWh/m2 (1%), and 2.3 kWh/m2 (4%), respec-
tively. Correspondingly, the use of TC/PCM roof saves cooling load
by 8.8 kWh/m2 (11%), 5.9 kWh/m2 (14%), 9.2 kWh/m2 (9%),
11.8 kWh/m2 (7%), and 11.1 kWh/m2 (18%), respectively. It is
noticed that TC roof is effective in reducing cooling energy con-
sumption of the building, which is attributed to increased solar
reflectance of TC coating during summer. PCM layer is also found
to slightly reduce cooling energy demand of the building, which
is due to the latent heat storage of PCMs. Among all building envel-
opes, TC/PCM roof is the most prominent in reducing cooling loads.
Moreover, it is found that all adaptive building roofs bring more
energy savings of the building in mild climate region (i.e., Kun-
ming). This might be ascribed to the average temperature of Kun-
ming is closer to phase change temperature of PCM (approximately
21.7 °C) and color-change temperature of TC materials (around
31 °C).
Concerning heating loads, the results in Fig. 6(b) show that indi-
vidual TC roof is only effective for the building in hot and mild
J. Hu, Xiong (Bill) Yu
regions with maximum heating energy saving of up to 2% while the
use of PCM roof reduces heating energy demand by 8.1 kWh/m2
(4%), 7.1 kWh/m2 (1%), 5.7 kWh/m2 (6%), 0.9 kWh/m2 (15%), and
2.0 kWh/m2 (14%) for the building in Beijing, Heilongjiang, Nan-
jing, Guangdong, and Kunming, respectively. Accordingly, TC/
PCM roof saves heating load by 6.3 kWh/m2 (3%), 5.2 kWh/m2
(1%), 4.1 kWh/m2 (4%), 1.1 kWh/m2 (19%), and 1.7 kWh/m2 (12%)
for the building in Beijing, Heilongjiang, Nanjing, Guangdong, and
Kunming, respectively. Obviously, PCM roof is the most effective
in reducing heating load of the building in all sites while TC roof
is the least effective in saving heating load, which might be due
to relatively low solar absorptance of TC materials during winter.
It is also observed that adaptive building roof reaches the best
heating energy saving in hot climate region (i.e. Guangdong). This
might be explained by that the average temperature of Guangdong
in heating exceeds melting point of PCMs and more heating energy
reduction by PCM board.
As for the annual total energy consumption in the building, the
simulation results in Fig. 6(c) show that when compared to tradi-
tional roof, TC roof brings total energy saving of 7.7 kWh/m2 (3%),
4.3 kWh/m2 (1%), 8.0 kWh/m2 (4%), 10.7 kWh/m2 (6%), and
9.8 kWh/m2 (13%) for the building in Beijing, Heilongjiang, Nanjing,
Guangdong, and Kunming, respectively; while the utilization of
PCM board results in total energy saving of 9.8 kWh/m2 (4%),
8.3 kWh/m2 (1%), 7.4 kWh/m2 (4%), 2.9 kWh/m2 (2%), and 4.3 kWh/
m2 (6%), respectively. Correspondingly, the use of TC/PCM roof leads
to total energy saving of 15.1 kWh/m2 (6%), 11.1 kWh/m2 (2%),
13.3 kWh/m2 (7%), 12.8 kWh/m2 (9%), and 12.8 kWh/m2 (17%),
respectively. It is noticed that TC/PCM roof performs best in reducing
Fig. 8. Impact of location of PCM layer on performance of the building in five climates: (a) cooling load, (b) heating load, (c) total energy consumption.
8
Construction and Building Materials 262 (2020) 120481
total energy consumption of the building, followed by PCM roof and
TC roof. Furthermore, it is also found that adaptive building roof is
more prominent in reducing total energy use in the mild climate
region, which is due to the adaptability of PCM and TC materials to
climatic characteristics of the region.
3.2. Impact on monthly energy consumption analysis
Fig. 7 displays that the monthly heating and cooling energy
demands of the building with various types of building roof in Nan-
jing. It is found that the heating energy demand in Nanjing is gen-
erally required from November to March with a peak heating
energy demand in January; while the cooling energy is mainly con-
sumed from May to September with a peak cooling load in July.
During the cooling season, the cooling energy demand of the build-
ing is reduced by 12.6 kWh/m2 (8%), 1.9 kWh/m2 (1%), 14 kWh/m2
(9%) when employing TC roof, PCM roof, and TC roof/PCM roof in
comparison with traditional roof. During the heating season, heat-
ing energy consumption is slightly increased by 0.2 kWh/m2 with
the use of TC roof while heating load is reduced by 5.5 kWh/m2
(6%), 4.0 kWh/m2 (4%) with the application of PCM roof and TC/
PCM roof, respectively when comparing with traditional roof. It
is evident that TC/PCM roof performs best in reducing total energy
use during the cooling season and PCM roof is the best building
roof during the heating season. More importantly, TC/PCM roof
could considerably reduce both heating and cooling loads during
both cold and hot seasons, proving its seasonal control over energy
use of the building.
J. Hu, Xiong (Bill) Yu
Fig. 9. Influence of thickness of PCM layer on performance of the building in five climates: (a) cooling load, (b) heating load, (c) total energy consumption.
3.3. Effect of location of PCM layer
The determination of the position of PCM layer within a
building envelope is a crucial parameter that induces a consid-
erable impact on its performance under transient heat flow
[57]. Fig. 8 compares the performance of the building with
TC/PCM roof where PCM layer is placed inside and outside the
roof insulation. It is observed that when the room with PCM
layer outside the roof insulation needs more cooling energy of
0.2–0.6 kWh/m2 (0.2–1%), higher heating load of 0.7–2.6
kWh/m2 (0.3–14%), more total energy by 2.9 kWh/m2 (1%),
1.8 kWh/m2 (0.3%), 2.1 kWh/m2 (1%), 1.0 kWh/m2 (0.7%), and
1.2 kWh/m2 (2%) for the building in Beijing, Heilongjiang, Nan-
jing, Guangdong, and Kunming, respectively when compared to
the room with PCM layer inside the roof insulation. It can be
seen that the PCM board inside the roof insulation brings more
energy savings of the building than that outside the roof insula-
tion. This might be attributed to that the temperature is
decreasing from outside to inside and PCM board experienced
phase change process at the inside position. Hence, it is sug-
gested to place PCM layer inside the roof insulation, showing
desired energy performance of the building. This conclusion
coincides with the statement in previous studies that the opti-
mal position for PCM is the interior edge of building envelope
[29,50].
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Construction and Building Materials 262 (2020) 120481
3.4. Effect of thickness of PCM layer
The energy performance of the building with TC/PCM roof in
five climates has been studied by varying thickness of PCM layer,
as shown in Fig. 9. The results show that increasing thickness of
PCM layer by five times, more cooling load is reduced, which is
3.0 kWh/m2 (4%), 1.9 kWh/m2 (5%), 2.8 kWh/m2 (3%), 3.6 kWh/
m2 (2%), and 3.3 kWh/m2 (7%) for the building in Beijing, Hei-
longjiang, Nanjing, Guangdong, and Kunming, respectively. Mean-
while, less heating energy is consumed, which is lowered by
11.3 kWh/m2 (6%), 14.9 kWh/m2 (3%), 7.9 kWh/m2 (9%),
0.9 kWh/m2 (18%), and 2.6 kWh/m2 (21%), respectively. Corre-
spondingly, the total energy saving reaches up to 14.3 kWh/m2
(6%), 16.8 kWh/m2 (3%), 10.7 kWh/m2 (6%), 4.4 kWh/m2 (3%),
and 5.9 kWh/m2 (10%), respectively. It is noticed that the increas-
ing thickness of PCM layer brings positive impact on heating, cool-
ing and total energy demands. This improved effectiveness by
raising thickness of PCM layer is ascribed to the extra thermal
resistance and increased amount of the active PCM in the roof.
3.5. Effect of thickness of TC coating
The annual energy performance of the building with TC/PCM
roof in five cities is studied with varied thickness of TC coating in
the roof, as shown in Fig. 10. It can be seen that as the thickness
J. Hu, Xiong (Bill) Yu
Fig. 10. Influence of thickness of TC coating on performance of the building in five climates: (a) cooling load, (b) heating load, (c) total energy consumption.
of TC coating increases from 10 mm to 50 mm, the cooling load is
reduced by 5.1 kWh/m2 (7%), 3.0 kWh/m2 (8%), 5.2 kWh/m2 (5%),
7.0 kWh/m2 (5%), and 5.1 kWh/m2 (10%) for the building in Beijing,
Heilongjiang, Nanjing, Guangdong, and Kunming, respectively.
Meanwhile, the heating load is lowered by 15.6 kWh/m2 (8%),
25.8 kWh/m2 (5%), 9.8 kWh/m2 (11%), 0.8 kWh/m2 (16%), and
2.2 kWh/m2 (18%), respectively. Accordingly, the total energy sav-
ing in these five different cities reaches up to 20.7 kWh/m2 (8%),
28.8 kWh/m2 (5%), 15 kWh/m2 (8%), 7.8 kWh/m2 (5%), and
7.3 kWh/m2 (12%), respectively. Hence, the increase in thickness
of TC coating is effective in curtailing more heating, cooling and
total energy use, which might be attributed to the added extra
thermal resistance in the roof.
4. Conclusions
This study evaluates the energy saving benefits of using adap-
tive building roof (TC roof, PCM roof, TC/PCM roof) in buildings
under five different climates when compared with traditional roof.
The variations in the thickness of PCM layer as well as the thick-
ness of TC coating in roof are considered. The placement of the
PCM layer inside or outside of the insulation layer is also consid-
ered. The main findings from the analyses include:
(1) TC roof has a negligible influence on the heating load while
lowers the cooling load (up to 16%), therefore saves the total
energy use (up to 13%) for the buildings.
10
Construction and Building Materials 262 (2020) 120481
(2) The use of PCM roof reduces the heating loads (up to 15%)
and cooling load (up to 4%), and leads to total energy saving
for the buildings (up to 15%).
(3) TC/PCM roof significantly reduces the cooling energy use
and heating energy use by controlling the heat flux through
the building envelope. These lead to 18% of cooling energy
saving for the building under mild climate, 19% of heating
energy saving under hot summer and warm winter climate,
and 17% of total energy saving under mild climate.
(4) TC roof, PCM roof and TC/PCM roof perform better under
mild climate in terms of total energy saving of the building.
(5) TC/PCM roof shows seasonal control of building energy use
with the extent of performance dependent upon the season
and climate conditions.
(6) Placement of the PCM layer inside the roof insulation
achieves more energy saving benefits than placing outside
the roof insulation.
(7) The increases in thickness of PCM layer from 5 mm to
25 mm saves total energy saving up to 10%.
(8) With the increased thickness of TC coating from 10 mm to
50 mm, the total energy consumption is reduced by up to
12%.
These findings confirm the prospects of using adaptive building
roof, namely TC or PCM roof, for energy efficient buildings. To fur-
ther improve its energy saving, it is recommended to place the
PCM layer inside the roof insulation layer, to increase thickness
of PCM layer, and to increase the thickness of TC coating. The per-
J. Hu, Xiong (Bill) Yu
formance parameters of TC/PCM roof can be further tailored to
enhance the energy saving performance of adaptive roof. These
include setting the proper melting point and thermal properties
of PCM layer as well as the optical properties of TC coating.
5. Credit author statement
Jianying Hu and Xiong Yu conceived of the presented idea.
Jianying Hu performed experiments and energy simulation as well
as data analysis. Xiong Yu supervised the project.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared
to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by National Science Foundation (No.
1537289) and the Fundamental Research Funds for China Central
Universities (No. 3221002011C2, No. 3221002002A2).
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