Hashem Akbari | |
---|---|
هاشم اکبری | |
Born | |
Nationality | Iranian |
Education | University of California, Berkeley (PhD) |
Hashem Akbari (born 13 August 1949) is an Iranian-American professor of Architectural, Civil and Environmental engineering at Concordia University. He specializes in research on the effects of urban heat islands, cool roofs, asphalt paving materials, and energy efficiency in building.
Akbari was born in Iran. He received his Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1979. [1] He became a U.S. citizen in 1991. [2] He was a senior scientist and the leader of the Heat Island Group at Environmental Energy Technologies Division of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1983 to 2009. In 1985, he founded the Urban Heat Island (UHI) group, where he worked in the areas of heat-island quantification and mitigation. In 2009, he joined Concordia University, Canada, where he founded a laboratory to measure solar spectral reflectance and thermal emittance of common construction materials.
Akbari conducted research on the potential for cool roofing and paving materials to reduce the urban heat island effect. [3] He proposed work in adapting cool roofs as a "prescriptive" requirement for low-slope non-residential buildings in California. [4] In 2003, his proposal was approved by the California Energy Commission; it went into effect later in October 2005. He provided basis and assistance for the development of cool roof standards in Florida, Chicago, Georgia, and Atlanta.
His research has quantified the effect of cool roofs on increasing surface albedo to cool the globe. [5] [6] [7] [8] The city of Osaka, Japan, has recently instituted a $1.7 billion (¥ 170 billion) program of cool roofs, green roofs, and urban trees as a result of his research. [9] Akbari's other contributions to the development of several international standards are:
He contributed to the writing of two chapters for the ASHRAE Application Handbook: (1) Building Energy Monitoring and (2) Energy Use and Management. [12] [13] He published a guidebook for urban heat island mitigation. Akbari is one of the founding organizers of the Global Cool Cities Alliance (vice Chairman of the Board, Technical committee chair), the Cool Roof Rating Council (CRRC) (Ex-Officio Board Member, International Committee Chair), and the European Cool Roof Council (ECPR) (Ex-Officio Board Member). [14] In addition to the standards development, Akbari also contributed to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.
Urban areas usually experience the urban heat island (UHI) effect, that is, they are significantly warmer than surrounding rural areas. The temperature difference is usually larger at night than during the day, and is most apparent when winds are weak, under block conditions, noticeably during the summer and winter. The main cause of the UHI effect is from the modification of land surfaces while waste heat generated by energy usage is a secondary contributor. Urban areas occupy about 0.5% of the Earth's land surface but host more than half of the world's population. As a population center grows, it tends to expand its area and increase its average temperature. The term heat island is also used; the term can be used to refer to any area that is relatively hotter than the surrounding, but generally refers to human-disturbed areas.
In passive solar building design, windows, walls, and floors are made to collect, store, reflect, and distribute solar energy, in the form of heat in the winter and reject solar heat in the summer. This is called passive solar design because, unlike active solar heating systems, it does not involve the use of mechanical and electrical devices.
In the study of heat transfer, radiative cooling is the process by which a body loses heat by thermal radiation. As Planck's law describes, every physical body spontaneously and continuously emits electromagnetic radiation.
A green roof or living roof is a roof of a building that is partially or completely covered with vegetation and a growing medium, planted over a waterproofing membrane. It may also include additional layers such as a root barrier and drainage and irrigation systems. Container gardens on roofs, where plants are maintained in pots, are not generally considered to be true green roofs, although this is debated. Rooftop ponds are another form of green roofs which are used to treat greywater. Vegetation, soil, drainage layer, roof barrier and irrigation system constitute the green roof.
A radiant barrier is a type of building material that reflects thermal radiation and reduces heat transfer. Because thermal energy is also transferred by conduction and convection, in addition to radiation, radiant barriers are often supplemented with thermal insulation that slows down heat transfer by conduction or convection.
The emissivity of the surface of a material is its effectiveness in emitting energy as thermal radiation. Thermal radiation is electromagnetic radiation that most commonly includes both visible radiation (light) and infrared radiation, which is not visible to human eyes. A portion of the thermal radiation from very hot objects is easily visible to the eye.
A flat roof is a roof which is almost level in contrast to the many types of sloped roofs. The slope of a roof is properly known as its pitch and flat roofs have up to approximately 10°. Flat roofs are an ancient form mostly used in arid climates and allow the roof space to be used as a living space or a living roof. Flat roofs, or "low-slope" roofs, are also commonly found on commercial buildings throughout the world. The U.S.-based National Roofing Contractors Association defines a low-slope roof as having a slope of 3 in 12 (1:4) or less.
The climate in urban areas differs from that in neighboring rural areas, as a result of urban development. Urbanization greatly changes the form of the landscape, and also produces changes in an area's air. The study of urban climate is urban climatology.
Reflective surfaces, or ground-based albedo modification (GBAM), is a solar radiation management method of enhancing Earth's albedo. The IPCC described this method as "whitening roofs, changes in land use management, change of albedo at a larger scale ."
Underfloor heating and cooling is a form of central heating and cooling that achieves indoor climate control for thermal comfort using hydronic or electrical heating elements embedded in a floor. Heating is achieved by conduction, radiation and convection. Use of underfloor heating dates back to the Neoglacial and Neolithic periods.
Building insulation is material used in a building to reduce the flow of thermal energy. While the majority of insulation in buildings is for thermal purposes, the term also applies to acoustic insulation, fire insulation, and impact insulation. Often an insulation material will be chosen for its ability to perform several of these functions at once.
Solar gain is the increase in thermal energy of a space, object or structure as it absorbs incident solar radiation. The amount of solar gain a space experiences is a function of the total incident solar irradiance and of the ability of any intervening material to transmit or resist the radiation.
Thermal comfort is the condition of mind that expresses subjective satisfaction with the thermal environment. The human body can be viewed as a heat engine where food is the input energy. The human body will release excess heat into the environment, so the body can continue to operate. The heat transfer is proportional to temperature difference. In cold environments, the body loses more heat to the environment and in hot environments the body does not release enough heat. Both the hot and cold scenarios lead to discomfort. Maintaining this standard of thermal comfort for occupants of buildings or other enclosures is one of the important goals of HVAC design engineers.
Passive ventilation is the process of supplying air to and removing air from an indoor space without using mechanical systems. It refers to the flow of external air to an indoor space as a result of pressure differences arising from natural forces.
A thermal bridge, also called a cold bridge, heat bridge, or thermal bypass, is an area or component of an object which has higher thermal conductivity than the surrounding materials, creating a path of least resistance for heat transfer. Thermal bridges result in an overall reduction in thermal resistance of the object. The term is frequently discussed in the context of a building's thermal envelope where thermal bridges result in heat transfer into or out of conditioned space.
Interior Radiation Control Coating Systems (IRCCS), sometimes referred to as radiant barrier coatings, are paints designed to provide thermal insulation to buildings.
Thermal emittance or thermal emissivity is the ratio of the radiant emittance of heat of a specific object or surface to that of a standard black body. Emissivity and emittivity are both dimensionless quantities given in the range of 0 to 1, representing the comparative/relative emittance with respect to a blackbody operating in similar conditions, but emissivity refers to a material property, while emittivity refers to specific samples or objects.
Radiant heating and cooling is a category of HVAC technologies that exchange heat by both convection and radiation with the environments they are designed to heat or cool. There are many subcategories of radiant heating and cooling, including: "radiant ceiling panels", "embedded surface systems", "thermally active building systems", and infrared heaters. According to some definitions, a technology is only included in this category if radiation comprises more than 50% of its heat exchange with the environment; therefore technologies such as radiators and chilled beams are usually not considered radiant heating or cooling. Within this category, it is practical to distinguish between high temperature radiant heating, and radiant heating or cooling with more moderate source temperatures. This article mainly addresses radiant heating and cooling with moderate source temperatures, used to heat or cool indoor environments. Moderate temperature radiant heating and cooling is usually composed of relatively large surfaces that are internally heated or cooled using hydronic or electrical sources. For high temperature indoor or outdoor radiant heating, see: Infrared heater. For snow melt applications see: Snowmelt system.
Cool pavement is defined by the United States Environmental Protection Agency as pavement that implements technologies contributing to heat island effect reduction efforts. Most cool pavements either increase pavement albedo to reflect shortwave radiation out of the atmosphere and reduce heat transfer to the Earth’s surface, or use evaporative water cooling through the pavement to lower ambient temperatures. Newer technologies involve energy harvesting, heat storage methods, and phase change materials. Cool pavements are commonly made with reflective coatings or aggregates applied to conventional pavements or incorporation of porous or permeable materials. While pavement load capability may be reduced with more frequent maintenance requirements, cool pavements show promising results in reducing ambient temperatures and reducing energy usage.
Passive daytime radiative cooling (PDRC) is the use of unpowered, reflective/thermally-emissive surfaces to lower the temperature of a building or other object.