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

• Published in: Entropy (Basel, Switzerland) Vol. 24; no. 11; p. 1550
• Main Authors: Han, Rubing, Xu, Zhimao, Long, Enshen
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 28-10-2022; MDPI
• Subjects: Air flow; Altitudes; Boundary layer thickness; Bricks; Chemical properties; Computational fluid dynamics; Concentration gradient; Cooling; Coverings; Diffusion layers; Diffusion rate; Energy; Evaporation; evaporation performance; evaporation space height; Heat exchangers; Influence; Insulation; Investigations; Mathematical models; Methods; Numerical analysis; numerical study; Reynolds number; Speed; Strip; Urban heat islands; Velocity; Water conservation; Water vapor; water-retained brick; Wind effects; Wind speed; Winds; China
• DOI: 10.3390/e24111550
• EISSN: 1099-4300

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.