Use of a cellular clayey concrete for a wall specially fitted with water pipes

A vertical wall made of cellular clayey concrete, which has been fitted wit h water pipes, is the subject of the study carried out herein under a heati ng mode of operations. The monitoring of this prototype's behaviour has bee n performed over 24-h cycles which include an 8-h period of water circulati on. With both the material and the geometry of the prototype being held con stant, the influence of energy-related parameters affected by water circula tion, flow and temperature upon the amount of stored energy can be evaluate d. It has been shown that within the particular domain of investigation, a variation in the flow does not engender significant fluctuations in the pro totype's thermal performances. As the temperature of the intake water incre ases, the amount of energy stored in the wall also increases. Moreover, for a water intake temperature of 42 degrees C, the surfacic heat flow remains less than the maximal threshold imposed for floor-heating installations. A model, which has already been validated for other types of materials, is a pplied herein in order to simulate the prototype's behaviour. The compariso n with an experimental series, which includes both a storage and a depletio n phase, has shown a good level of agreement. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science S.A . All rights reserved.