A theoretical and experimental investigation of a radiative cooling system

A radiative cooling system is built in Irbid-Jordan and utilized to cool and store fluids by direct radiation to the low effective sky temperature. The radiative cooling system is built to verify the validity of a mathematical model proposed to describe the system dynamic thermal behavior. The constructed radiative system has the ability to create a 15 degrees C reduction in the mean temperature of a 120 1 capacity storage tank using 0.6 m(2) radiative cooling panel over one night and under climate conditions that vary within the range of 28-55% for relative humidity and 16-27 degrees C for ambient temperature, which are the average spring conditions of Irbid-Jordan (Latitude=32.5 degrees N, Longitude= 35.5 degrees E). This implies that the system can emit 13 MJ/(m(2).night) to the sky. It is found that the theoretical and the experimental predictions of the proposed model are in a qualitative good agreement. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.