Knowledge Gaps and Experimental Methodology for Sustainable Concrete Roof Cooling Using Pulsating Heat Pipes

Nowadays, most of the houses and buildings are made with concrete roof. One of the major problem with concrete roof is it gets heated in hot summer. This causes thermal discomfort to occupants as the concrete roof radiates heat into the rooms. Literature survey shows that researchers have attempted various methods to keep the concrete roof temperature low. These methods include green roof, cool roof, roof pond, cooling with phase change material, etc. However these methods have disadvantages like performance degradation, high maintenance cost, and extra weight on roof, water leakage issues, etc. even though all these provide a decrease in roof temperature. Hence, a new method incorporating double layer pulsating heat pipes in concrete roof is attempted in this study.  The research methodology includes fabrication of pulsating heat pipes (PHP), preparation of concrete slabs and heat transfer study by integrating PHPs into concrete slabs. An experimental setup to perform the relevant experiments is proposed in this paper. The expected outcomes include estimate of roof temperature reduction, influence of single layer and double layers on roof temperature, influence of working fluid on roof temperature and influence of tilt angle on roof temperature.