Date of Graduation

5-2016

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science

Degree Level

Undergraduate

Department

Mechanical Engineering

Advisor/Mentor

Nutter, Darin

Committee Member

Couvillion, Rick J.

Second Committee Member

Roe, Larry A.

Abstract

This paper presents an overview of phase change materials (PCM) and their properties along with a review of relevant studies conducted in the past several years over phase change materials. An experiment is conducted to examine the differences between external building walls with and without bio-based phase change materials. In addition, the length of time BioPCM requires to completely change phase is examined from the data. Based on the data, the internal wall temperature of a home can be reduced by approximately 2 F. Additionally, a theoretical case study is presented and it is concluded that with the use of phase change materials energy savings of approximately 58% are possible in warm climates under several assumptions about how the PCM handles heat.

Included in

Engineering Commons

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