Micro-Scale Thermal Simulations Of Cement Pastes Containing Microencapsulated Phase Change Materials (MPCM)

CAGGIANO, A., ; MANKEL, C., ; KOENDERS, E. A.

Congreso; 13th World Congress in Computational Mechanics ? WCCMXIII and PANACM II; 2018

In the last decades, the use of smart components embedded inside cementitious composites, called Phase Change Materials (PCMs), has become a more and more attractive solution for saving energy and to provide a more efficient thermal comfortability to modern buildings and constructions. This work presents the current research activities running at the Institute of Construction and Building Materials (WiB) of TU Darmstadt, and deals with the investigation of advanced coupling of two physical mechanisms represented by a heat problem and microstructural heterogeneities in cement-based composites. Particularly, the thermal response of cement pastes, along with occurring phase change phenomena, will be simulated at the microscale level. A virtual 3D porous microstructure with embedded Microencapsulated-(M)PCMs, which are created with an available hydration model, provide a fundamental basis for the analysis of the morphological influence on the effective thermal energy diffusion parameters. The current work is based on investigating the influence of the morphological effect on the thermal properties of hydrating cement paste systems by using the cement hydration and microstructure development model Hymostruc, combined with MPCMs. Laboratory characterization of MPCM-pastes were also performed using several test methods which are here briefly reported. Test thermal performances in terms of heat capacity, conductivity and temperature evolutions of cement paste systems with and without MPCMs were experimentally evaluated, and are used as benchmark for calibration purposes.