A new experimental method to determine specific heat capacity of inhomogeneous concrete material with incorporated microencapsulated-PCM

The study presented in this paper focuses on an experimental investigation of the specific heat capacity as a function of the temperature Cp (T) of concrete mixed with various amounts of phase change material (PCM). The tested specimens are prepared by directly mixing concrete and microencapsulated PCM. This paper describes the development of the new material and the experimental set-up to determine the specific heat capacity of the PCM concrete material. Moreover, various methods are proposed and compared to calculate the specific heat capacity of the PCM concrete. Finally, it is hoped that this work can be used as an inspiration and guidance to perform measurements on the various composite materials containing PCM.