Abstract
The asphalted areas absorb huge quantity of the sun energy because of its black color
and its ability to absorb this energy and of course because it covers huge areas in the
cities. If this energy can be harvested asphalt will be one of the important renewable
resources.
The main principle of this system is to get benefit from the huge asphalted areas to
harvest solar energy and use it in many applications in our daily life. This can be done
by installing high conductivity pipe network inside the asphalt layer in safe depth this
for two reasons the first is to allow the water inside the pipes to capture the largest
amount of heat, and the second reason to keep the pipes away from the impact of the
loads which acts on the asphalt and may cause deformation to the pipes or destroy
them.
When the sun rays fall on the surface of asphalt, the sun heats the asphalt where the
heat is transferred across the asphalt layer by conductivity of the asphalt until it
reaches the pipes network, and then the pipe network absorbs the heat from the
asphalt. At the same time the water flow inside the pipes network conducts the heat
from the pipes network and heated gradually until the temperature is equal to the
temperature of the asphalt after that the hot water can be used in many applications
such as industry, house holding…etc.