CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

The use of concrete as construction and building material has enormously increased in thelast decades. Innovations in the concrete industry are asking for answers in terms of reusing constructiondemolishing waste, energy saving concepts and cost-effective solutions for CO2 reductions. Therefore,the concrete industry has committed itself towards developing novel technologies for new materials,which are aimed at reducing its carbon footprint dramatically. One promising solution can be achievedby turning cement-based elements into active energy storing systems via the integration of Phase ChangeMaterials (PCMs), to be accommodated in a concrete?s open porosity.In this regard, this work deals with investigating the advanced coupling of two physical mechanismsrepresented by the thermal energy storage problem and the effect of mesoscale heterogeneities, wherethe latter is explicitly taken into account. The thermal response of Cementitious Composites made withRecycled Brick Aggregates (RBAs) containing PCM, along with the occurring phase transformationphenomena will be simulated at the meso-scale level. Particularly, 3D mesostructures considering coarseaggregates with embedded PCMs will provide a fundamental basis for the analysis of the morphologicalinfluence on the effective thermal energy storage capacity of such composites. The basic equations,employed for predicting phase transformation phenomena in PCM-based systems, and thecorresponding simulations demonstrate the capability of the proposed modelling approach. Laboratorycharacterization of PCM-RBA-mortars were also performed using several test methods and are used asa benchmark for calibration purposes. The research activities presented are developed within theframework of the ?2CENERGY? (A Coupled multiscale approach for modelling ENERGY storagephenomena in Cementitious systems) project founded by the Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation(http://www.avh.de).