Field measurement of ground temperatures in Bandung: devices and the results of measurement

Ground cooling is considered to be one of the passive cooling strategies in buildings although its application is rarely found in Indonesia. Effectiveness of this strategy depend on the ground temperature profiles. Meanwhile, comprehensive data of ground temperature as a basis of design for ground cooling are still rarely found in Indonesia. This research aims to develop the measurement devices for collecting ground temperatures data and to investigate the ground temperatures in different depths (i.e., 1m, 2m, …, 9m). For measurement, an instrumentation system was developed with the main component of Arduino Mega 2560 as microcontroller. T-type thermocouples with diameter of 0, 5mm mounted in the metal cones were used as the temperature sensor and placed at the different depths. The field measurement was conducted from August to November 2019 in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia. This study demonstrated that the developed instrument system had good performance both in measuring and data acquisition. Model equation was developed to predict the ground temperature at certain depth regardless ground materials and humidity level. The results indicated that the ground temperature significantly lower to 5m-depth. However, the reduction of the temperature after 5m was not significant; the deeper the ground, the temperature changes are negligible.