Using advanced cool materials in the urban built environment to mitigate heat islands and improve thermal comfort conditions

Heat island phenomenon rises the temperature of cities, increases the energy demand for cooling and deteriorates comfort conditions in the urban environment. To counterbalance the impact of the phenomenon, important mitigation techniques have been proposed and developed. Pavements present a very high fraction of the urban areas and contribute highly to the development of heat island in cities. The use of cool pavements presenting substantially lower surface temperature and reduced sensible heat flux to the atmosphere, appears to be one of the most important proposed mitigation solutions. The present paper investigates and describes the actual state of the art on the field of cool pavements. The main thermal and optical parameters defining the thermal performance of pavements are analyzed. Almost all of the developed technologies, where data and results are available, are considered while emphasis is given on the presentation of reflective and permeable/water retentive pavements. The main technological achievements on both fields are reviewed while existing applications are described and performance data are given when available. The existing results clearly show that the mitigation and cooling potential of cool pavements is very significant and can highly contribute to decrease temperature on the urban environment.

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Using cool pavements as a mitigation strategy to fight urban heat island—A review of the actual developments

Conventional impervious pavements have dark surface and large thermal inertia. During summertime they tend to absorb and store solar radiation but negate the evaporative cooling, contributing to the development of urban heat island (UHI). The idea of using cool pavements to mitigate the UHI has gained momentum recently. This review synthesizes the existing definition, physical mechanism, and typical cooling techniques of cool pavements, presenting the influence of cool pavements on the urban thermal environment. Benefits, penalties, costs and policies for the applications of cool pavements are presented with special emphasis on reflective pavements and evaporative pavements. The review suggests that the definition of cool pavements remain incomplete; that the influence of cool pavements on the air temperature in the urban canopy layer is unknown; and that the impact of cool pavements on the thermal conditions of adjacent buildings and pedestrians remains unknown. Many speculations of using cool pavements to battle the UHI effect need refinements and validations. Heat-harvesting pavements seem interesting because they not only stay cool but harness renewable energy. However, the results from the heat-harvesting pavement prototype require scrutiny on the power output, durability, and lifetime of the pavement system. Future studies are expected to understanding the impacts of cool pavements on pedestrian thermal stress, on adjacent building’s energy loads, and on the air temperature in the urban canopy layer.

A review on the development of cool pavements to mitigate urban heat island effect

Increase of the ambient air temperature in cities caused by the urban heat island phenomenon has a seri- ous impact on the economic and social system of cities. to counterbalance the consequences of the increased urban temperatures important research has been carried out resulting in the development of efficient mitigation technologies. the present paper aims to present the state of the art in terms of local climate change and urban heat island mitigation techniques. In particular, developments in the field on highly reflective materials, cool and green roofs, cool pavements, urban green and of other mitigation technologies are presented in detail, while examples of implemented projects are given.

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Local climate change and urban heat island mitigation techniques – the state of the art

Three decades of urban heat islands and mitigation technologies research

Methods of creating solar-reflective nonwhite surfaces and their application to residential roofing materials

We describe methods for creating solar-reflective nonwhitesurfaces and their application to a wide variety of residential roofingmaterials, including metal, clay tile, concrete tile, wood, and asphaltshingle. Reflectance in the near-infrared (NIR) spectrum (0.7 2.5mu m) ismaximized by coloring a topcoatwith pigments that weakly absorb and(optionally) strongly backscatter NIR radiation, and adding anNIR-reflective basecoat (e.g., titanium dioxide white) if both thetopcoat and substrate weakly reflect NIR radiation. Coated steel andglazed clay tile roofing products achieved NIRreflectances of up to 0.50and 0.75, respectively, using only cool topcoats. Gray concrete tilesachieve NIR reflectances as high as 0.60 when thickly coated withNIR-scattering pigments, and could attain an NIR reflectances as high as0.85 by overlaying a titanium-dioxide basecoat with a topcoat colored byNIR-transparent organic pigments. Granule-surfaced asphalt shinglesachieved NIR reflectances as high as 0.45 when a cool color topcoat wasapplied over a thick white basecoat.

Joseph Reilly

Papers

Methods of creating solar-reflective nonwhite surfaces and their application to residential roofing materials

Methods of Creating Solar-Reflective Nonwhite Surfaces and theirApplication to Residential Roofing Materials

Cooler tile-roofed buildings with near-infrared-reflective non-white coatings