Effects of local heating of phase change floor (PCF) on thermal comfort and energy efficiency

To promote the application of phase change floors (PCFs) in buildings, the study designs various local heating methods based on modular PCFs. The accuracy of the simulation results is verified by comparing them with the experimental data. The effects of different heating powers, heating positions, and surface materials on thermal comfort, energy efficiency, and operating cost of PCFs are then investigated. The results show that as the heating power rises, the indoor thermal comfort duration time increases. The maximum floor surface temperature is reduced by approximately 14 degrees C by raising the heating power from 28.4 % to 86.4 %, which effectively alleviates the local overheating issue. However, there is an optimum value for the heating power. In this study, the average daily electricity consumption (QE,d) and cost (Cd) of the PCF are lowest when the heating power is 71.6 %. When changing the heating position, a uniform distribution of the heating zone is a more favorable method. Although its QE,d and Cd values are slightly higher, it has better thermal comfort. Furthermore, marble PCF demonstrates superior performance compared to wood PCF. Despite the uniform distribution of heating zones, the average indoor temperature of the PCF heating room with a wood floor fails to reach 18 degrees C for a longer time. Additionally, the QE,d and Cd values are high, exceeding 23 kWh/day and 9 & YEN;/day, respectively. Determining suitable local heating conditions can provide a reference for practical engineering design and further improve the heating performance of PCFs.