Experimental study of practical applications of a passive evaporative cooling wall with high water soaking-up ability

Abstract

Aimed at controlling the increase in urban surface temperature and creating comfortable urban environments in summer, the authors have developed a passive evaporative cooling wall (PECW) constructed of porous ceramics. These ceramics enable their vertical surfaces to be wet up to a level higher than 100 cm when their lower end is placed in water. Our previous study has demonstrated the cooling performance and applicability of a prototype PECW constructed of pipe-shaped ceramics (ceramic pipes). The present paper presents a PECW unit system which can be easily installed for practical applications. Experiments were conducted using experimental PECW units. Experimental results show that the ceramic pipe developed in this study possessed a higher water-holding and soaking-up ability than the previous one. Wet surfaces of the new ceramic pipe reached a height of over 130 cm at an outdoor location exposed to solar radiation on sunny summer days. Furthermore, the air passing through the PECW unit was cooled, and its temperature can be reduced by around 2 °C during summer daytime. These results indicate that the proposed PECW can be broadly applied to various urban locations.