Constructal design applications in buildings: Radiant cooling panels and thermochemical energy storage

The present work highlights how the constructal law is implemented in the search for buildings' performance from a thermal lookout. The authors reviewed some of their research efforts through two applications: radiant cooling panels and thermochemical energy storage in buildings. In a deterministic approach, it was demonstrated that the overall performance of such systems could be anticipated. Under the same operating conditions, cooling panel with dendritic flow configurations exhibited better global performance compared to the design with a serpentine flow layout. Two configurations of elemental reactors for thermochemical energy storage were studied: reactive material in beds layers and impregnated within a tube. A theoretical approach allowed to predict the impact of the Bejan number on the sensible heat output for the first configuration, when numerical experiments allowed to determine how to morph the tube shape to increase thermal performances.