Influence of urban form on the performance of road pavement solar collector system: Symmetrical and asymmetrical heights

Abstract

3Recent works have highlighted the importance of mitigating the urban heat island effect using 4 innovative technologies. Several studies have emphasised the capabilities of the road pavement solar 5 collector system to dissipate high temperature from the pavement/road surfaces not only to expand its 6 lifecycle but also to reduce the Urban Heat Island effect. This study builds on previous research 7 combining an urban configuration and a road pavement solar collector system in Computational Fluid 8Dynamics in order to understand the complicated connection of the urban environment and the road 9 pavement. This study investigates the impact of the urban form on the performance of the road 10 pavement solar collector focusing on comparing symmetrical and asymmetrical height of the urban 11 street canyon. A 3D de-coupled simulation approach was used to simulate a macro domain (urban 12 environment) and micro domain, which consists of road pavement solar collector pipes. ANSYS 13 Fluent 15.0 was employed with the solar load model, Discrete Ordinate radiation model and Reynold 14Averaged Navier Stokes with standard -epsilon equation. The simulation was carried out based on 15 the summer month of June in Milan urban centre, Italy. Results showed a significant variation in the 16 temperature results of road surface in comparing the three configurations. It was also found that there 17 was a significant reduction in the RPSC system performance when taller building row was behind the 18 first approaching building row. The method presented in this research could be useful for studying the 19 integration of RSPC in various urban forms. 20 21 22 Keyword: Urban Heat Island, urban street canyon, building simulation, Computational 23 Fluid Dynamics, road solar collector, heat transfer 24 25 26 27 28

Toward an Efficient and Sustainable Use of Energy in Industries and Cities

“…Other papers on the efficient waste management regard the definition of a primary energy return index, used for comparing different municipal solid waste management scenarios [49]; the coupling of renewable energy source in a wastewater treatment plant consisted of conventional activated sludge systems [50]; and a novel methodology applied to evaluate urban wastewater treatment plants in terms of energy efficiency [51,52]. This topic was dealt with comprehensively in previous SDEWES SIs focusing on different aspects, namely: the influence of urban form on the performance of road pavement solar collector system [53]; the energy management in a smart municipal energy grid including combined heat and power plants, solar photovoltaic and wind technologies [54]; the analysis of the future energy scenarios on the Danish municipality of Helsingør to obtain a cost-optimal combination between individual heating, district heating and heat savings [55]; a study on the management of dust to ensure that urban environment and industry can coexist in a sustainable and beneficial manner [56]; the adoption, in urban water distribution systems, of energy storage systems to meet the water demand [57]; the evaluation of carbon emissions in highly polluted European cities [58]; the replacement of bituminous roofs as green roofs to make cities more 'future proof' and resilient [59]; the integration of the renewable energy resources to enhance the regional energy efficiency and sustainability [60]; and many other papers concerning the analysis of energy efficiency targets of the member countries of the EU [61][62][63].…”

A Coupled Modelling Method for the Evaluation of the Impact of Pavement Solar Collector on Urban Air Temperature and Thermal Collection

“…The work (Nasir et al, 2017a) investigated the influence of pipe layout, embedded pipe depth, pipe spacing, pipe diameter, the flow rate of the medium used for the heat transfer, thermal conductivity, etc. The impact of building geometry (Nasir et al, 2015) and street canyon aspect ratio (Nasir et al, 2017c, Nasir et al, 2017b) on the PSC system performance were also analysed using a decoupled approach. The decoupled approach simulates the urban canyon and PSC system separately and cannot predict the PSC's direct influence on the urban air temperature.…”

“…The environmental parameters would also affect the performance of pavement solar collectors. The influence of building geometry, urban street canyon aspect ratio and urban form on the PSC system have been analysed in the previous works (Nasir et al, 2015, Nasir et al, 2017c, Nasir et al, 2017b. Memon et al (2010) evaluated the role of wind speed and building aspect ratio (ranging between 0.5 and 8) on air temperatures in an urban canyon using CFD and comparing results with wind tunnel measurements; two diurnal and one nocturnal heating situation were considered.…”

Energy harvesting from pavements and roadways: A comprehensive review of technologies, materials, and challenges

“…In their extended work, the ASC system was optimized in terms of pipe diameter, pipe depth, water velocity, and water temperature, for both urban and rural domains. Further, they analyzed the effect of urban form (symmetric and asymmetric height of the urban street canyon) on the performance of ASC and found that there was a significant reduction in the ASC performance when taller building row was behind the first approaching building row. Also, study on the effect of canyon aspect ratio showed that there was significant increase of pavement surface temperature when the aspect ratio was increased from 1 to 2 beyond which there was only minimal increase.…”