Passive energy management through increased thermal capacitance

Joseph Carpenter, Pedro J. Mago, Rogelio Luck, Heejin Cho
2014 Energy and Buildings  
Energy usage within the world is increasing at a drastic rate. Buildings currently consume a major amount of the total energy used within the United States, and most of this energy usage supports heating and cooling. This demand shows that new passive energy management systems are needed. The use of Increased Thermal Capacitance (ITC) is proposed as a new passive energy management system. To increase thermal capacitance, a piping system is either added into a building's walls or ceiling. In
more » ... paper, a building with ITC added is compared to a similar building without ITC using the simulation program TRNSYS. Along with a comparison between the walls and ceiling, several parameters are analyzed for their effect on the performance of the ITC. ITC was found to be effective especially when located in the ceiling, with the location, specific heat and tank size being the most important factors. ii DEDICATION I would like to dedicate this research to my parents, James and Elizabeth Carpenter. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
doi:10.1016/j.enbuild.2014.02.044 fatcat:hslz73jjuzb6dbrzootzrbu7ge