Among my sustainable strategies, I am using a fair amount of thermal mass, and since the climate generally needs more heating than cooling, the large amoungs of thermal massing will reduce the heating load by preserving the haet from the sun. An integration of microencapsulated PCMs into that thermal mass will only increase its energy saving potential.
plan view of thermal mass which PCMs could be incorporated into
section view - sunlight during the winter hitting thermal mass
In addition to incorporating microencapsulated PCMs into the thermal mass, I would like to make the wall interactive and informative to the users of the space.
Since PCMs relate to thermal stimuli, it would be interesting to include other thermal-responsive materials into the wall system. I would like to, if possible, mix thermochromic dye into a concrete mixture that has been infused with microencapsulated PCMs. In the morning, the floors and wall could be blue, signifying the stored cool temperature of the material, and then as the temperature warms, the thermochromic dye could change to another color, informing the occupants of what is occuring. In the floor, certain spots that produce high internal heat load would also have an effect on the floor color (like near a copy machine).
Simply mixing a thermochromic dye into concrete or something thermally massive might not have much visual effect, but it may be possible to mix it into a similar material such as LiTraCon.
This is only a basis for the idea I would like to develop throughout the semester. A thermochromic, PCM infused wall may be informative (if the user knows what to look for), but I still want to make the wall system more interactive. This idea of increased user-interaction is what I plan to explore next.
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