Theoretical and Experimental Study on the Thermal Insulation Performance of the Roof with Water-Retained Bricks.

In this paper, the thermal insulation performance of the roof with water-retained bricks was first analyzed theoretically with respect to the thermal inertia, attenuation and delay time of the roof with water-retained bricks. Then, the experimental rig was established to carry out the experimental research on the thermal insulation performance of the roof with and without water-retained bricks on the sunny, overcast and rainy days in the summer and on the sunny day in the winter. The results showed that: (1) the surface heat storage coefficient is affected by the evaporating heat transfer of the water layer; (2) the thermal inertness, attenuation and delay time of the roof with water-retained bricks are 2.575, 21 and 6.94 h, respectively, when the water depth is 2 cm; (3) on the sunny, overcast and rainy days in the summer, laying water-retained bricks can enhance the heat insulation performance of the roof, and can improve the thermal comfort of the loft; and (4) on the sunny day in the winter, after laying water-retained bricks, the average temperature of the loft in 24 h increases by 2.3 °C, and the temperature fluctuation of the loft decreases by 56.0%. Therefore, the thermal insulation effect is significantly improved after laying water-retained bricks on the roof from the results of both the theoretical and experimental study.

Numerical Study on Effects of Wind Speed and Space Heights on Water Evaporating Performance of Water-Retained Bricks.

Energy-saving roof renovation methods are effective ways to alleviate the urban heat island effect. In this paper, the authors propose three models of two-layer water-retained bricks, established the physical and mathematic models of the water-retained bricks, and then conducted a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation on the effect of wind speed and evaporation space height on the water-evaporating performance of water-retained bricks. The results show that: (1) for the water-retained bricks with no-hole lids, macroscopic evaporation does not happen under the static wind conditions; with the increase of wind speed, the evaporating boundary layer thickness decreases, the water vapor concentration gradient in the boundary layer and the mass diffusion flux increase; (2) for the water-retained bricks with strip-hole lids, under the static wind condition, the evaporating performance of the water-retained bricks with strip-hole lids is better than that of bricks with no-hole lids; with the increase of wind speed, the evaporation of bricks with strip-hole lids is less affected by inlet airflow velocity than that of bricks with no-hole lids; (3) as for both the water-retained bricks with no-hole lids and with strip-hole lids, for a given wind speed, both the water vapor concentration gradient and the mass diffusion flux decrease as the evaporation space increases.