Abstract
As a burgeoning active thermal insulation technique, the pipe-embedded building system has attracted particular attention from architects and engineers. A novel pipe-embedded building system based on flat-plate heat pipe (FPHP) is proposed to solve the inherent issues like operation energy consumption and facade integration. The experimental investigation is firstly conducted on an FPHP prototype to explore its thermal response characteristics at different tilt angles and heat loads and then performed on an FPHP-embedded composite wall to explore the preliminary thermal performances. Results showed that the length of the condensation section with uniform temperature distribution accounted for at least 88.9% when the heat load was smaller than 3000 W/m~2, which verified the feasibility of using FPHP to complete the heat charging process. The tilt angle had a significant influence on the thermal resistances, startup behavior, and effective thermal conductivity of FPHP, and the optimal tilt angle could be reduced for load reduction mode, while this value could be increased for supplementary heating mode. When the heat source temperature is 25 and 35℃, the equivalent heat transfer coefficient value of the FPHP-embedded wall under test conditions is 0.19 and -0.08 W/m~2·℃, respectively. Meanwhile, the corresponding heat loss reduction rate could reach 62.7% and 116.4%, respectively. Overall, the results evidenced the effectiveness of FPHP-embedded building systems, which could also contribute to its system design, operation control, and further investigation.
NSTL
Elsevier