Impact of Design Choices on the Life Cycle Energy of Modern Buildings

Traditionally, the embodied energy of design choices which reduce operational energy were assumed to have a negligible impact on the life cycle energy of buildings. However with new buildings having considerably lower operational energy, the significance of embodied energy increases. A life cycle assessment of a population of house designs was conducted in a mild and mixed climate zone. It was determined not only that embodied energy dominates life cycle energy, but that the impact on embodied of design choices was of equal significance to the impact on operational energy.

Optimisation of A Phase Change Thermal Storage System

PCMs have always been viewed as a suitable candidate for off peak thermal storage, particularly for refrigeration systems, due to the high latent energy densities of these materials. However, due to the need to have them encapsulated within a container this density is reduced. Furthermore, PCMs have a low thermal conductivity which reduces the useful amount of energy which can be stored. To consider these factors, the true energy storage density of a PCM system was proposed and optimised for PCMs encapsulated in slabs. Using a validated numerical model of the system, a parametric study was undertaken to investigate the impact of the slab thickness, gap between slabs and the mass flow rate. The study showed that, when optimised, a PCM system can deliver a true energy storage density between 53% and 83% of the latent energy density of the PCM.