Design of smart wetting of building materials as evaporative cooling measure for improving the urban climate during heat waves
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Date
2020
Publication Type
Conference Paper
ETH Bibliography
yes
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Abstract
An urban microclimate model is used to design a smart wetting protocol for multilayer street pavements in order to maximize the evaporative cooling effect as a mitigation measure for thermal discomfort during heat waves. The microclimate model covers a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model for solving the turbulent air, heat and moisture flow in the air domain of a street canyon. The CFD model is coupled to a model for heat and moisture transport in porous urban materials, to a radiative exchange model, determining the net solar and longwave radiation on each urban surface and to a wind driven rain model able to determine the wetting flux on each surface during a rain event. We first evaluate the evaporative cooling potential for different pavement systems during normal summer conditions after a long rain event during night in order to select an optimal pavement system. Then, we design a smart wetting protocol answering the questions ‘when’, ‘how much’ and ‘how long’ a pavement should be artificially wetted for having a maximum cooling effect. We found that a daily amount of 5mm wetting over 10 minutes in the morning, preferentially between 8:00 and 10:00 am, guarantees a maximal evaporative cooling for one day and night during a heat wave.
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Publication status
published
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Book title
12th Nordic Symposium on Building Physics (NSB 2020)
Journal / series
Volume
172
Pages / Article No.
3001
Publisher
EDP Sciences
Event
12th Nordic Symposium on Building Physics (NSB 2020)
Edition / version
Methods
Software
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Date created
Subject
Organisational unit
03806 - Carmeliet, Jan / Carmeliet, Jan
Notes
Funding
169323 - Wind-driven rain impact of urban microclimate: wetting and drying processes in urban environment (SNF)