A practical method for testing the properties of phase-change building materials and composites

In this paper, a testing method special for phase change building materials was designed for testing the phase change temperatures, latent heat of phase change, specific heat of solid/liquid phase change materials and so on. The weight of the testing sample could be 5Kg or even more. Even if the amount of the testing samples was huge, the testing samples can still be homogenous during the test, avoiding of the test data errors caused by sample preparation. Moreover, in this test method, any contrast samples were not used. The heat related to the testing sample could be calculated directly from the testing records, which eliminated the errors caused by the difference between the test conditions and the test process of the contrast samples and the testing samples. Therefore, the results based on the test method are more scientific, accurate and effective. Three typical phase change materials are selected for verifying the testing results. When compared with the results from existing literatures, the results obtained by the designed testing method showed high accuracy and repeatability. It turned out that the method could be generally used for testing the phase change properties of the phase change building materials.