Surface Temperature Reduction of Porous Concrete Pavers Using a Water Retention Layer

Abstract

Porous pavements are now used to reduce urban heat even though previously it was designed specifically to reduce stormwater runoff. To qualify the pavement as a cold pavement, the pavement needs to be modified either as evaporative pavement, reflective pavement, and heat storage pavement. This study used porous concrete pavers as evaporative pavement by adding wetted retention layer underneath the pavers and investigated the temperature reduced. Three materials of water retention layers were investigated and material with higher water retention was selected. The pavement temperature changes are studied using selected water retention material with different layer thicknesses. The result shows that felt wool material absorbed more water compared to palm oil fiber and geotextile. While as for the selection of the thickness, water retention layer with 8 mm thick was selected due to its optimal evaporation rate and gives higher temperature reduction on the block pavers compared to 4 mm thick and 12 mm thick.