With temperatures rising globally, the need for more sustainable cooling options is also growing.
With temperatures rising globally, the need for more sustainable cooling options is also growing. Researchers at UCLA and their colleagues have now found an affordable and scalable process to cool buildings in the summer and heat them in the winter.
Led by Aaswath Raman, an associate professor of materials science and engineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, the research team recently published a study in Cell Reports Physical Science detailing a new method to manipulate the movement of radiant heat through common building materials to optimize thermal management.
Radiant heat, which is felt whenever a hot surface warms our bodies and homes and is carried by electromagnetic waves, travels across the entire broadband spectrum at ground level between buildings and their environments, such as streets and neighboring structures. On the other hand, heat moves between buildings and the sky in a much narrower portion of the infrared spectrum known as the atmospheric transmission window. The difference in how radiant heat travels between buildings and the sky versus the ground has long presented a challenge to cooling buildings with less skyward-facing surfaces. These buildings have been hard to cool in the summer as they retain heat from the ground and neighboring walls when the outside temperature is high. They are equally difficult to warm in wintertime as the outdoor temperature drops and the buildings lose heat.
Read more at University of California - Los Angeles
Image: A thermal infrared image of UCLA's Royce Hall reveals radiant heat. The facade absorbs heat (white to pale red) from the ground (red) while some heat from the ground/building radiates up to the cold sky (blue). (Credit: Raman Lab/UCLA)
