Affiliation: | ERA 1028. CNRS. Campus Universitaire, Bât, 502. 91405-, Orsay CEDEX, France |
Abstract: | Three thermal walls have been examined with the same test-cell. The complete experiment, for the three walls, lasted 3 yr. The test-cell was thoroughly instrumented to permit the energy balance on the various parts of the cell (thermal wall, inner room, front glazing) to be checked against real data. Moreover the dynamical loading of the test-cell was varied to simulate various couplings between the wall and the enclosure. This simulation was made with the help of two flat plate air-air heat exchangers covering totally the top and opposite inside walls of the cell. The simulation allowed the performance of thermal walls coupled to a back room to be assessed.The energy yield of the walls and the temperature variations of the inside room are compared for a 40 cm thick concrete wall, an 8 cm thick hard paraffin wall, and an 8 cm thick soft paraffin wall. The advantage of the paraffin walls over the concrete is a mass, -including containers, one-twelfth smaller, thus much better suited to a retrofit. |