Urban Heat Island (UHI) effects are increasingly recognised as a major challenge for climate resilience, urban sustainability, and public health. Buildings play a dual role: they are highly vulnerable to overheating while simultaneously contributing to urban heat through energy use and anthropogenic emissions. This review explores the modelling of UHI phenomena across scales, from single-building dynamic energy simulations to Urban Building Energy Models capable of capturing interactions between the built environment and the urban microclimate. Particular attention is given to the drivers of UHI formation, the development of modelling tools such as Urban Weather Generator (UWG), and the growing need for harmonised methodologies and standards, including recent World Meteorological Organization (WMO) guidance. The article highlights the link between scientific evidence and regulatory frameworks, from European climate adaptation strategies to national and regional policies promoting passive cooling, reflective materials, and climate resilience planning. By bridging fundamentals, modelling advances, and policy implications, the paper aims to provide an integrated perspective on how UHI research can inform effective mitigation strategies and support the transition toward sustainable, resilient, and carbon-neutral cities.
This study highlights how the analysis of the long-term performance of solar reflective materials used both as roofing and flooring solutions to mitigate urban overheating has recently become more important. European and Italian legislations focus just on initial properties, but actual energy efficiency depends on durability over time. The objective is the development and the validation of characterization methodologies that consider performance degradation due to aging, providing reliable guidance for designers and policy makers. This study integrates standard thermophysical characterization methods with natural and accelerated aging protocols. Solar reflectance (SR) measurements can be performed by using ultraviolet-visible-near-infrared spectrophotometer, solar spectrum reflectometer and pyranometer/albedometer, while thermal emissivity can be measured with infrared emissometers. Natural aging was implemented at the Energy Efficiency Laboratory structure of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, operational since 2017. Accelerated methods include the standard protocol for surface soiling and an innovative method for biological growth. The analysis reveals significant degradations in SR, with reductions of between 10% and 40% after three years of natural exposure. Bituminous membranes show the most marked degradation, while ceramic materials present the best stability. Accelerated methods show interesting correlations with natural aging. The doubling of the standard accelerated cycle, designed on North American climatic conditions, is more representative of European climatic conditions characterized by greater air pollution. It must be recalled that evaluation based just on initial performance significantly underestimates long-term behaviour. The results suggest the need to update regulations by introducing requirements based on post-ageing performance. New materials design should be focus on durability by integrating into new materials both self-cleaning properties and improved stability over time. While, during design process, materials with certified long-term stability, analyzed through durability and degradation analysis should be considered in energy and economic assessments.
The digitalization of vehicles has accelerated the adoption of touchscreen-based control systems and with the growing push toward full electrification of national vehicle fleets. Their combined implications for driver distraction, road safety, and the electrical infrastructure required to support large-scale vehicle electrification remain insufficiently addressed. The present study offers an essential cross-sector perspective for contemporary resilience planning by combining human-factors analysis with system-level energy considerations. This study investigates these issues by examining both the human-machine interaction demands imposed by touchscreen-centric interfaces and the energetic and infrastructural consequences of replacing all gasoline-powered passenger cars in Italy with battery electric vehicles. The methodology integrates a numerical model of driver visual distraction with empirical findings from recent eye-gaze studies. Touchscreen interactions are decomposed into phases of visual reorientation, cognitive decision-making, pointing movement, actuation, and refocusing. This framework allows estimation of total eyes-off-road time and the corresponding blind-driving distance. Model outcomes are systematically compared with measured interaction durations from controlled experimental studies. The results show that touchscreen interactions require significantly longer visual engagement than predicted by idealized human-machine interaction models, particularly for multi-step tasks such as navigation and address entry. In parallel, national fuel consumption data are used to approximate the annual distance traveled by gasoline vehicles on Italian motorways and ordinary roads. These distances are converted into electrical energy demand using representative consumption values, and the associated average and installed charging powers are computed for fast-charging, slow public charging, and universal home-charging scenarios. From an energy-system perspective, replacing all gasoline vehicles with electric vehicles would require charging power levels that exceed the current Italian peak electrical load by a wide margin, especially under a full home-charging configuration. Overall, the findings suggest that touchscreen-based interfaces lead to significant increases in driver workload, while large-scale fleet electrification imposes substantial demands on the national power system. These results underscore the need for safer interface designs and for electrification strategies that incorporate human, infrastructural, and system-level constraints.
Hydraulic fracturing is a core stimulation technology for unconventional oil and gas development, in which proppants play a decisive role in sustaining fracture conductivity. As fracturing operations extend toward deep reservoirs, high-temperature and high-pressure (HTHP) environments, and complex fracture networks, the mechanical response, transport behavior, and coupled interactions among proppants, fracturing fluids, and rock formations exhibit pronounced multiscale and multiphysics characteristics. These coupled processes constitute a fundamental constraint on the long-term stability of fracture conductivity. This review focuses on the formation and evolution of proppant-supported fracture conductivity and systematically examines the material characteristics and applicable conditions of different proppant types. From a multiscale perspective, four core mechanisms governing proppant behavior during hydraulic fracturing are synthesized: physical support and embedment–crushing processes under fracture closure; compaction-induced conductivity degradation within proppant packs; thermofluid-dynamic controls on proppant settling and migration inside fractures; and cooperative transport mechanisms between proppants and fracturing fluids that sustain long-term conductivity. The effects of cyclic loading, HTHP environments, and fluid rheology on the coupled behavior of the proppant–fluid–rock system are further analyzed. Current limitations are identified in predicting mechanical behavior under extreme conditions, constructing multiscale coupled models, and bridging laboratory-scale observations with field-scale performance. Recent progress in multiscale multiphysics modeling and proppant design is summarized, and future research directions at the intersection of engineering thermophysics and energy engineering are outlined. The review provides a theoretical basis for proppant selection, conductivity evaluation, and efficient development of unconventional reservoirs.
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