Experimental evaluation of improving effects of thermal environment of water retaining pavement on wheelchair users

Abstract

The temperature on the asphalt pavement (AS) reaches nearly 60 °C in summer daytime, for example, and this may cause larger thermal loads on humans and heat-related disorders. In order to design a better environment by improving ground coverings, we investigated the basic characteristics of the water retentive block pavement (WR). WR is composed of porous blacks and exerts the function of suppressing the temperature-rise of the road surface by depriving the vaporization from the fully retained moisture in porous blocks. We previously developed a novel method for evaluating human thermal environment on pavements by observing typical climatic variables and additional physiological variables. Thus in this study, we firstly examined a subjective experiment on WR with standing-still posture under summer outdoor radiative condition for evaluating thermal environment based on the method. Next, we conducted another subject experiment on WR in a wheelchair. Our results showed that thermal loads on humans on WR tended to be lower than that on the conventional asphalt pavement. Since the height of person affects the amount of radiative heat receiving from ground surface, WR significantly improved thermal load on human in a wheelchair. Totally, we verified that WR was a possible solution for realizing the better thermal environment by improving ground coverings.