Thermal Performance of Passive Radiative Cooling Strategies on Building Envelopes

Passive radiative cooling has been extensively studied as a means to cool the exterior surfaces of buildings and reduce space cooling loads. This phenomenon is caused by thermal radiation that is continuously emitted from surfaces on Earth, and transmitted through the atmosphere to outer space (at approximately 3-4 Kelvin temperature scale). To gain a deeper understanding of how terrestrial objects can access this extraterrestrial cold reservoir, I use a theoretical framework derived from classical radiative heat transfer to investigate the radiative properties of surfaces and the atmosphere over a spectrum of wavelengths. In this dissertation, I demonstrate the theoretical cooling potential that can be achieved by surfaces with idealized radiative properties under various atmospheric conditions. While several researchers have optimized the optical properties of their surfaces to emit strongly in wavelength bands corresponding to high atmospheric transparency, I show that a high degree of spectral tailoring is only benefcial when humidity in the atmosphere is low or when a surface can minimize its absorption of solar radiation. Additionally, I prescribe appropriate sets of surface