Thermal Science

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EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF PCM EFFECTS ON INDOOR TEMPERATURE IN LIGHTWEIGHT BUILDINGS

ABSTRACT

Phase change materials (PCMs) integrated into lightweight building envelopes were experimentally evaluated to assess their impact on indoor thermal performance. A PCM test house and a reference test house were examined under two conditions: without ventilation and with night ventilation. The experiments were conducted under the climatic conditions of the Republic of Serbia, in Belgrade, at the Vinča Institute of Nuclear Sciences. Two observation periods were defined to evaluate the thermal behaviour of the test houses, with four thermal cycles monitored in each period. Results indicate that, on hot sunny days, the PCM test house achieved maximal indoor air temperature reduction of 3.5-4.8 °C during the non-ventilated period and 4.2-5.9 °C during the night-ventilated period, while reducing thermal load levelling (TLL) by 64.1-72.5% and 45.5-49.5%, respectively. The average indoor temperature reduction (AITR) ranged from 0.03-6.12% in the first period and from 3.19-6.54% in the second, confirming the potential of passive PCM application for improving indoor thermal stability. These findings show the practical benefits of PCMs in enhancing energy efficiency and indoor thermal comfort in lightweight buildings.

KEYWORDS

PCM, indoor air temperature, AITR, Thermal load levelling, thermal comfort

PAPER SUBMITTED: 2026-02-15

PAPER REVISED: 2026-04-02

PAPER ACCEPTED: 2026-04-08

PUBLISHED ONLINE: 2026-04-30

DOI REFERENCE: https://doi.org/10.2298/TSCI260215045M

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Experimental study of PCM effects on indoor temperature in lightweight buildings

© 2026 Society of Thermal Engineers of Serbia. Published by the Vinča Institute of Nuclear Sciences, National Institute of the Republic of Serbia, Belgrade, Serbia. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International licence

THERMAL SCIENCE

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Dragoslav B Mrđa

Biljana S Vučićević

Valentina M Turanjanin

Nenad M Stepanić

Milica R Mladenović

Predrag D Škobalj

Milan D Gojak

EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF PCM EFFECTS ON INDOOR TEMPERATURE IN LIGHTWEIGHT BUILDINGS