Façade & Atmospheric Temperature Relationship A Brick Façade Research Study

Abstract

An urban environment is impacted by the urban heat island effect and as such has a higher temperature than that of surrounding rural areas, this is caused by the use of human construction materials such as concrete and bricks causing differences in albedo, emissivity and heat capacity as well as differences in vegetation cover. One aspect of this which is lacking in research is the connection between the temperature of the façades of buildings and the atmospheric temperature. This report will therefore be studying how a brick façade interacts and is connected to the atmospheric conditions and see which aspects have the greatest effect. This was achieved by measuring the properties of the façade and comparing them to downloaded weather data. The results show that while in shaded conditions there is a very strong correlation between façade and air temperature, with other factors such as solar radiation having a minimal impact. In sunlit conditions, the air temperature does still have an impact, but it is vastly outweighed by the impact of solar radiation which is the main factor behind the façade temperature, on the sunny side there are also other factors such as wind which causes thermal convection from the ground which has a noticeable impact on the façade temperature rather than being dominated entirely by a single factor. It was also found that the albedo of the façade was quite low at 0.38 which gives it a low reflective ability and makes the solar radiation more impactful. The emissivity was also calculated and found to be rather high at 0.81 causing a noticeable emission of energy from the façade which can lead to a quick drop in temperature in the evening unless outweighed by other factors such as heat storage.