Thermal performance enhancement of a conductive asphalt solar collector

• Main Authors: Abbas, Firas A., Alhamdo, Mohammed H.
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Subjects: Additives; Air quality; Asphalt mixes; Asphalt pavements; Energy consumption; Heat conductivity; Heat transfer; Performance enhancement; Surface temperature; Thermal conductivity; Thermal energy; Three dimensional models; Tubes; Urban heat islands; Working fluids
• ISSN: 0094-243X; 1551-7616
• DOI: 10.1063/5.0140183

The Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect occurs when the asphalt pavement surface temperature exceeds 70 ℃ in summer. Rutting is a significant temperature-related problem that develops on asphalt surfaces when the temperature becomes too high. Additionally, this phenomenon increases energy consumption for cooling buildings near pavements and degrades air quality. In this work, a developed Asphalt Solar Collector (ASC) has been investigated by inserting tubes inside the construction of the pavement and circulating working fluid within it to capture the thermal energy generated by asphalt surfaces. The effect of Hot Mixture Asphalt (HMA) thermal conductivity has been investigated to improve HMA thermal performance and satisfies the aforementioned requirements. A numerical 3-D model utilizing COMSOL Multiphysics Software has been used to investigate the performance of various ASC models with parallel and serpentine embedded tubes. Analyses are performed on several different asphalt mixtures compositions and additives. The results show that increasing the thermal conductivity of HMA, increases the efficiency of ASC from 54.38 % to about 66.74 %, also the surface temperature of HMA decreases significantly from 60.18 ℃ to 52.67℃.