Friday JohKu – AKA – TGIF – Fri-Yay/Good News

~ John W. Howell
credit – Cheng et al Purdue University

Today’s good news story comes from the Good News Network

Build a Zigzag Pattern onto Walls to Keep Buildings Cool During Heat Waves

By

Andy Corbley –

Structural engineers have discovered that the angles keep the building cooler if you build an apartment building with angled, shark-fin-shaped protrusions on the side where the Sun’s heat is the strongest.

It’s one of various simple new building and design elements proposed for a world where July and August routinely feature stories of droughts, heat waves, and temperature records.

From the dawn of time, humans have been forced to live in hot environments. From the dawn of construction, humans have figured out how to build buildings that take advantage of thermodynamics to cool them naturally. Many of these delightful architectural features are visible in buildings from antiquity, such as the Roman amphitheaters, the Taj Mahal, and the wind towers of Yazd.

Much of that planning was ignored with the advent of the modern age, and homes, whether those of the lower-middle class or the upper-middle class, took on the same character of modular boxes exposed to the mercy of any element that batters them.

In a study at Purdue and Colombia universities, researchers sought to find a simple way to retrofit boxy buildings with features that could help keep them cooler amid rising global temperatures.

One issue their research encountered is that heat hits most urban buildings from two angles—from the Sun and the ground, where cement and asphalt absorb heat and radiate it upwards all day.

“These two directions require different properties for cool walls,” says Qilong Cheng, a postdoctoral researcher at Purdue University who worked on the study as a graduate student at Columbia University. “So we have this two-surface zigzag design, with one surface facing the sky and the other facing the ground.”

The angles, which resemble the sawtooth roofs of factory rooms, can reduce average indoor temperatures by 5.5° Fahrenheit.

One material reduces or deflects radiation coming up from the ground, while heat from the Sun is reflected with ultra-white paint.

Cheng and his colleagues are now looking to patent the design and turn it into a product, perhaps made of corrugated iron, which they used in their study and found could reduce HVAC energy usage by 14%.

The good news in this story is, once again, someone questioned how things were done and came up with a better way. Today’s JohnKu talks about questions. I hope you have a lovely weekend.

Status Quo by John W. Howell

Defending the way,

Most things have always been done . . .

Ensures obsolete.

76 thoughts on “Friday JohKu – AKA – TGIF – Fri-Yay/Good News”

  2. Most of the time, I am quite sensible, but not today…I read angels instead if angles for starters. If only, eh! Secondly, while a genius idea, we’d probably be in the Ice -Age before such buildings went up…Hey ho -pass me another ice lolly. (Spain and very humid.) Cheers.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. An ice lolly sounds terrific. We are in the 40’s here. Stay cool, Joy. I hope we see some progress before the ice age. I also hope you have a super weekend. 😁

      Like

  3. Dad always said, the only stupid question was the one not asked. So, it’s always good to ask that question and if you come up with a better answer – fantastic. Bravo once again!

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Well, as we move into far left country filled with joy, the free market idea is going to die. That will leave the government to come up with solutions. How often does that work? Have a great weekend in freedom, Steve. (While you can)

      Liked by 1 person

  8. It definitely “ensures obsolete”. Thank you, John, for this heartening post. The creative potential of people amazes me. This is very hopeful! 🌞

    Liked by 1 person

  11. That is interesting. In the olden days they were good at taking the heat into account when building, not just this suggestion, but other things like window placement, colors, roofs, etc. I was told we lost a lot of that when we started using airconditioning.

    Liked by 1 person

  12. My house faces west, so mid-afternoon through evening, my blinds are pulled to ‘keep the house cooler. ‘hahah! Yeah, that doesn’t work. Something has got to be done about climate change. Oops. Our Gov DeSantis said that word is to be struck from Florida’s vocabulary.

    Liked by 1 person

  17. It looks like a good working idea for city buildings. I wonder how it would work for suburban and country homes where they’re not surrounded by concrete and asphalt radiating the sun’s infrared.

    Liked by 1 person

      1. I installed more eve vents in our house, doubling the number already installed, and it really helps keep the temperature down inside. It enables hot air in the attic to be pushed out through the roof vents better.

        Liked by 1 person

  20. What a “cool” idea, John! As long as our world has inquisitive people willing to question the status quo, we’ll be in good shape. And your JohnKu says that perfectly!

    Liked by 1 person

  23. How interesting, and energy saving at the same time John, now we in England, could do with a paint job that allows our homes to heat up more in winter, especially with our high escalating heating bills 🙂

    Have a lovely cool weekend my friend.. And thank you for sharing.. So many new innovations coming to light.. Which is what we need.. ❤

    Like

  29. Agree!

    Newer is not always better, when all the discoveries of days past are chucked out.

    History is important: culture, social, technical, ideology, and more.

    Cool JohnKu, mental AC. Thank you!

    🥶 𝛘 🧐𝖃 🧊𝐗 🤔⧗

    Liked by 1 person

Comments are closed.