LITERATURE REVIEW ON THE FEASIBILITY OF WATER WALLS APPLICATION IN COOLING THE BUILDING GLAZED FAADE

Prof Madya Ar. Dr. Abdul Malek Abdul Rahman

Department of Architecture, School of Housing, Building and Planning, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 Penang, Malaysia. Corresponding author: Cheng Gi Ni (SB/671/12) Lee Choon Gim (SB/678/12) ___________________________________________________________________ Abstracts In this project, our team set out to investigate the feasibility of the application of water cooling wall in the building glazed fa ade which facing the West. We have built a box as a controlled environment to test the response of the water wall cooling system to the heat source (the sun). The box consists of three parts: the external, internal and a water wall. The external volume contains a heat source, the internal volume to test indoor temperature and glass wall with flowing water source. In a predetermined amount of time, the effectiveness of water wall was measured by monitoring the change in temperature in the internal and external volumes. A time versus temperature graph shows the results of this experiment that the water wall reduces the internal temperature even inviting natural light into the interior spaces. Keywords: Water Wall, Fa ade Cooling Treatment, Sustainable

Introduction Water is an effective component of passive heating strategies. It has been used as the coolant in a variety of methods. The aesthetic benefits of water, translucent features that allow natural light to penetrate into the space beyond, and it comes with potential of different design opportunities. In an attractive and visible way, the application of water wall drawing rainwater runoff on the glazed wall and eventually stored in underground cisterns. Pumping energy of stored rainwater to the roof should be powered via solar energy. The water wall is generated where the streams of water flow will be re-circulated from the roof to the ground water features through the glazed fa ade. In addition, the use of glass wall also increased the aesthetic value by extending the exterior scenery into the interior. This design communicates the consciousness of the sustainable development and ecological objectives, in order to economize the use of water and electricity. In this context, various functions of water are illustrated through the water wall application. For example, there are evaporative cooling, tranquillizing sound

production, sustainable irrigation rainwater collection systems, and generating recreational opportunities for the people, the ambient environment and others.

Water Wall as Building Faade Cooling System A. Precedence Study British Pavilion: In the history of green architecture, the British Pavilion is one of the earliest structures to use water for passive cooling. It was built in a Seville Expo in 1992, designed by Grimshaw and Associates. The building used water mainly for passive cooling to control the interior climate and a large water wall to cool the outdoor temperature. There is also a modified trombe wall which made of water and sand to protect the west fa ade of the building from the hot afternoon sun. Solar panels are fixed on the roof to generate all the energy required to pump the water. The thermal properties of water allow the design of water wall to effectively cool an area. It requires a great amount of energy to increase the temperature of water by mere 1 degree. And yet water can cool an area very quickly for the same theory applies. Besides, the mist produced by the water wall have also created the cooling effect on the immediate surrounding environment. In collaboration with Mr. William Pye, a system was invented to pump the water to the roof that then the water cascaded down a glazed wall on the eastern fa ade of the building. In addition to the aesthetic visual effect that the water wall produced, the surface temperature of the building was decreased as the temperature taken 82 degrees, in compared to the exterior air temperature of 102 degrees at that time. Whereas, the interior of the exhibition space inside was successfully maintained at 72 degrees. Due to success of this water wall feature to bring down the temperatures of the interior spaces; the British Pavilion was hugely popular during the Seville Expo. Soon after the exposition, the pavilion was shifted and disassembled in Britain where it was temporarily used as a museum.

Figure 1: Application of Water Wall at British Pavilion in a Seville Expo in 1992

Physical Principle of Water Wall Cooling System First and foremost, the evaporative cooling process where the effect of evaporation is used as a natural heat sink. Sensible heat from the air is absorbed and it is used as the latent heat necessary to evaporate water. The required latent heat for the water evaporation process is 2256 KJ/kg at standard condition, which is 500 times lesser than what it is needed in water heating. The amount of absorbed heat depends much upon the amount of water which can be evaporated. In which, it means that the more water that has been evaporated, the lower the temperature it could reduce. It is also important to emphasize that the building and the surrounding water are cooled by the water evaporation process by the latent heat flux but not the water itself. Evaporative cooling is closer to the nature than what we might have expected. It is considered to be adiabatic, due to the fact that no additional heat or energy is required for the water evaporation. Only sensible heats from the surrounding and water body are used, and it result a temperature drop of the surrounding and water body. There are different variables which largely affect the process of evaporation: The surrounding temperature The sun radiation Difference in vapor pressure of water vapor mixture in the interior air and water vapor pressure at the exterior surface The velocity of exterior air flow/ wind speed The air humidity of exterior air flow The size of the contact surface The mass transfer coefficient

These variables could be largely influenced by the method of dehumidification. For example the sice of contact, such as droplet size, running tap water, sprinkler, or water misting or even the water fog by a metal diaphragm vibrating at an ultra or infrasonic frequency could produce different results of temperature drops. Basically the evaporative cooling process can be subdivided into two, which is direct evaporative cooling and indirect evaporative cooling. Both of the processes are almost similar, but indirect evaporative cooling uses some type of heat exchanging water resistant wall, which the indoor relative humidity will not increase to unacceptable levels.

A. Direct Evaporative Cooling The underlying concept of direct evaporative cooling is based on the conversion of sensible heat to latent heat. As from the diagram that has shown, the surface
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temperature is reduced when the evaporation process of the water in the air stream takes place. The latent heat follows the water vapor and diffuses into the air. The absolute humidity of this air stream increases during the process. When the moisture level of the air reaches to the maximum extent, the evaporation will stop to take place and the temperature level will reach a constant. Hence, the cooling effect might not sufficient especially in a very humid climate. To encounter it, the incoming air has to be dehumidified by forcing it through a desiccant to improve the cooling efficiency.

B. Indirect Evaporative Cooling In the indirect evaporative cooling process, there will be a primary and secondary air stream involved. A primary hot air stream will be humidified by the wet surface and is cooled due to the release of latent heat; while, a secondary air stream is used as the supply air of the building interior. This secondary air stream is cooled due to the absorption of heat by the heat exchanging space. As the supply air stream does not make any direct contact with the wet surface, the absolute humidity will not increase. One of the integrated building applications of this indirect evaporative cooling concept is the porous roof. Porous layer on the roof able to retains a significant amount of rainwater. When the process takes place, the temperature of the surrounding air and porous layer will decrease. The heat flux from the roof slab would also be reduced greatly. In this case, the building envelope is the heat exchanging area.

The Comparison of Building Integrated Applications in Evaporative Cooling Besides water wall, there are also many others building integrated evaporative cooling system that applies the same underlying theory. One of the building integrated applications is the passive evaporative cooling wall (PECW), which is constructed of porous ceramics. Porous ceramics possess the characteristic of having the capillary force that is able to soak water and allowing wind penetration at the same time, thus the process of water evaporation helped to reduce its surface temperature. The main advantage is that no additional pumps are needed for a circulating water flow, so the system is totally passive. However, the disadvantage is that, the water height are limited by capillary suction, and it only works if the wind pressure on the wall is sufficient to allow cool air coming into the building, or else the humidity level in the building will be relatively high. Vegetation or green wall is one of the applications that can be applied both inside and outside. The green wall can reduce the buildings energy consumption by reducing the internal air temperature through a process called evapotranspiration. During the photosynthesis and dissimilation process of a green plant, the excess of water in the leaves can evaporate to cool the surrounding air and the green plants itself also gives shade and reduce radiation. However, the disadvantage of the green wall is the non-transparency of the application, in which sun lights are unable to penetrate into wherever space that requires day lighting. There is also a constraint over the limited amount of evaporation and the increase in absolute humidity in the large glass-covered space which cost to a difficulty in building maintenance. From the recent studies and invention, as to overcome the main disadvantage of non-transparency problem, the super-hydrophilic photo catalyst (TiO2) coating technology has made it possible to maintain a thin film of water on all external surfaces of glazed buildings. The surface coated with TiO2 is changing to be highly hydrophilic due to the irradiation of UV light from the sun. This invention gives a large step in minimizing the amount of sprinkling water or running water to form a thin water film. The main advantage is that the coatings are applicable to most of the building materials, either vertical or horizontal surface, and especially on a glazed fa ade. Most importantly, the cooling function is achieved by only sunlight and rainwater.

External building surfaces coated with TiO2 , which utilize the whole building as a heat exchanging area.

Kesselring Method To weight the different criteria of these different building integrated applications, Kesselring method are used to examine the efficiency of this method by assessing both their functional and realization. The criteria examine under functional requirements included it humidifying process, cooling capacity, energy use, water use, water supply requirements, hygiene and multi functionality. On realization of the method, it weighs the integration level, noise reduction , serviceability and sustainable materials. Below are the relative score by Kesselring Method presented in the S - diagram.

Experiment Model Description and Methodology To predict the efficiency on the cooling effect of the water wall, an experimental box has been built as a reference to the situation for a space inside a glazed building. Simulation was carried out in a box of 26.2cm by 30.5cm, with a room height of 28.2cm, assuming there are two east west facing glass windows. The model of the experimental box is as shown.
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The experiment carried out consist of 2 parts, which is one without water wall applies on the experimental box and one with tap water running on the fa ade for the whole day, on an empty spacious field, with no obstruction or shadows from sunlight. Data are collected at the interval time of every 1 hour and the experiments start from 10am in the morning till 5pm when the sun sets. The purpose of this experiment is to examine the efficiency of the water wall on how much the evaporative cooling contributes to the temperature drops. When the sunlight radiates through the clear glass, it heats up the interior spaces. The greenhouse effect is expected to occur and it increases the interior temperature. (Figure 7) On the other set of experiments, the running water assimilates the water wall, are meant to apply evaporative cooling to the glazed experimental box. (Figure 3) The waters are there to reduce partial of the sun radiation and it cools down not only the surface temperature and the interior temperature as well. After the experiments, the result of the 2 set data is compared to examine the difference and percentage of temperature drops.

Variables of the experiments: Experiment I: Absence of running water taps as a water wall application I. II. III. Manipulated variable: exterior surrounding temperature, sun radiation, wind speed; Responding variable: Surface Temperature of the glass, Interior space temperature; Fixed variable: interior volume of the experimental box, vapor pressure of the interior air and exterior air.

Experiment II : Application of running water tap as a water wall application I. II. III. Manipulated variable: exterior surrounding temperature, sun radiation, wind speed; Responding variable: Surface Temperature of the glass, Interior space temperature; Fixed variable: interior volume of the experimental box, vapor pressure of the interior air and exterior air, water flow speed.

Equipment needed: (Figure 4) Extech 3-in1 Thermo-Hygro-Anemometer, Surface Thermometer, water pipe.

Simulation and Result of Water Wall Experiment The tables below show the data from the two tests.

a. Experiment I: Absence of running water taps as a water wall application Comparison of data collection of every hour (in C) over elapsed time (in hours) curve, of the heating periods of the exterior side.

Time

Exterior surrounding temperature

TeSURFACE (2) C Exterior surface Temperature

TeSURFACE (3) C Interior surface Temperature

10.30 am 11.30 am 12.30 pm 1.30 pm 2.30pm 3.30 pm 4.30 pm 5.30 pm

27.0 29.0 30.0 30.0 31.0 31.0 30.0 28.0

30.3 33.2 35.3 45.1 43.8 37.9 39.1 36.0

Table 1

30.0 33.6 36.0 44.4 45.7 40.8 42.2 40.0

50 45 40 Temperature (in C) 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0

Experiment 1
Exterior surrounding temperature TeSURFACE (2) C Exterior surface Temperature TeSURFACE (3) C Interior surface Temperature Time (hours)

Graph 1

b. Experiment II: Application of running water tap as a water wall application Comparison of data collection of every hour (in C) over elapsed time (in hours) curve, of the cooling periods of the exterior side.
Time Exterior surrounding temperature ( C) Exterior surface Temperature ( C) (water wall) Interior surface Temperature ( C)

10.30 am 11.30 am 12.30 pm 1.30 pm 2.30pm 3.30 pm 4.30 pm 5.30 pm

32.0 32.0 34.0 36.0 37.0 37.0 39.0 36.0

Table 2

32.0 32.0 32.0 32.0 32.0 32.0 32.0 32.0

41.0 32.0 34.0 38.0 39.0 38.0 39.0 39.0

45 40 35 30 temperature (C) 25 20 15 Interior surface Temperature 10 5

Experiment 2
Exterior surrounding temperature Exterior surface Temperature

0
Time (hours)

Graph 2

Discussion Our hypothesis that the application of water wall is an effective cooling system for building fa ade is supported by our data. Several things can be interpreted from the data. It is evident that the building which use glass window as west fa ade will absorb heat into the glass material and the solar radiation will penetrate into the interior of the building. Therefore the thermal comfort of interior spaces will reduce as the interior temperature increased drastically during the daytime. The temperature of the interior space with the water wall as west facade increased at a lower rate than that clear glass window fa ade. This is demonstrated by the fact that the slope of the interior temperature over time curve (Graph 1) was much greater than that interior temperature of testing with water wall cooling system. (Graph 2) The clear glass window also allowed a greater amount of heat to penetrate the indoor room at a greater rate than the water wall glazed fa ade. From the data of experiment 1, we can discover that the highest temperature of the day is 31 C and the interior surface reached 45.7 C in the windy day. In the other hand, during the sunny day, the highest temperature of surrounding achieved 39 C but the interior surface maintain the same as outdoor temperature which is 39 C, without any ventilation proposed in this experiment.

Conclusion There is a correlation between water wall and a ratio of outdoor to indoor temperature, and the ratio is slightly influenced by the outdoor temperature, and the difference of outdoor and indoor temperature does not increase more than 2 C in daytime. The clear glass window as West fa ade allowed the indoor room to increase temperature at a rapid rate. It reached the higher total temperatures and maintained the high temperatures for a long length of time which is 38 C and 39 C for 4 hours. (From 1.30pm to 5.30pm) However, the temperature difference between the exterior volumes associated with the water wall was minimal. A greater amount of heat transfer appears to be lost through the evaporative cooling of the water wall. In the future we might consider the different type of glass material as glazed fa ade and lengthening the test period. More research might be done on the material type or the thickness of glazed material which might shift the results significantly. It would be interesting to study the changing fa ade following the weather and time. We hope that our literature review can give insight that can inform future designer who are interested in water wall.

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Appendix

Figure 2: Extech 3-in1 Thermo-Hygro-Anemometer, Surface Thermometer

Figure 3: Application of running water tap as a water wall application

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Figure 4: Using a compass to show the correct direction of the East and West.

Figure Error! Bookmark not defined.: the East facade(clear glass) of the box

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Figure 6: Water flows evenly on the surface of the experimental box (West faade)

Figure7: greenhouse effect occurred

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Reference
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