Enhancement of a radiant floor with a checkerboard pattern of two PCMs for heating and cooling: Results of a real-scale monitoring campaign

When integrated in radiant floor, phase change materials (PCMs) enable the system to store and release thermal energy in winter and efficiently mitigate heat gains in summer. Although a large number of studies examined the thermal performance of radiant floors with PCMs, most of the works conducted a numerical analysis. Only a few studies experimentally investigated PCM integrated radiant floors, and they were limited to laboratory set-ups. In addition, nearly all the works focused exclusively on space heating. A radiant floor enhanced with PCMs was experimentally investigated at large-scale within the H2020 European project IDEAS. The system was composed of two types of PCMs, one for heating and one for cooling, installed in a building demonstrator equipped with an existing air handling unit (AHU). Data showed that in summer thermal loads were absorbed by PCM during the day. Heat was then released in the night to maintain indoor temperature close to the setpoint. In winter, the radiant floor integrated with the AHU allowed to achieve 13 % energy savings compared to the sole AHU. PCM thermal storage allowed to maintain the setpoint temperature of 20 °C from 9 h up to almost 30 h after the switching off of the systems.