ABSTRACT
In this paper, a method to mitigate pavement temperatures by the means of air convection is presented. A pavement prototype with a set of pipes buried in its aggregate layer was installed in the environment and air at 15ºC was allowed to flow through it. The use of air at a controlled temperature was meant to reduce the oscillations in the pavement temperature usually caused by varying environmental conditions.
The experiments performed with the pavement prototype showed that an air flow at a controlled temperature under a pavement is able to reduce the oscillations of the surface temperature both when the environmental air is colder or warmer than the reservoir temperature. In addition, the experimental results show that environmental factors such as air temperature and humidity can highly affect the performance of the system, therefore, weather data needs to be considered when designing this kind of system.
