Evaluation of building’s thermal performance, considering PCM usage in three different cities of Iran

Generally, in building constructions, conservation of heat in winters and preventing of heat penetration in summer time is in the agenda of many engineers these days in order to saving energy. Thus, in this study, the effectiveness of Phase Change Material (PCM) on thermal performance of a multi-storey residential building placed in three different climate regions (Bandar Abbas, Tehran, Tabriz) in Iran, was investigated and simulated in a year by EnergyPlusTM. In this survey, the micro-encapsulated bio-PCMTM mats with melting temperatures of 21 °C, 23 °C and 25 °C, were located in external walls of the building which helped to decrease fluctuations of interior temperatures through a year in each of the floors. Also, Implementing PCMs in external walls results to reduction in thermal loss. Inner surface temperature has been selected as an indicator for measuring indoor heat stress risk. With normalizing this factor using PCMs, more comfort and health for the occupant of the building were achieved. On the other hand, heat flux of the walls has also been studied to complete the survey of applying PCM on the residential building. On the test results basis, Tabriz, Tehran and Bandar Abbas, respectively had the best results and an appropriate different value in measuring these factors evaluated in this paper. Almost, for all selected PCMs these results were the same, only in Bandar Abbas, PCM 25 showed better performance.