Basic Research on the Influence of the Automobile Engine Heat at the Grass-covered Parking Lots

Abstract

Parking lot greening attracts attention as a new greenery technology of urban space, and the actual demonstrative experiments have been carried out in various places. Although turf grass is mainly used for greenig of the surface of parking lots, the damage of dying back considered to originate in the heat from vehicles was observed frequently. In this research, the survey of damage was performed first. Subsequently, using various automobile vehicles. At three grass-covered parking lot area, it turned out that the damage occurred at approximately 100% frequency. From the result of the experiment using car of various model, it was found that one cause of the damage to the grass was a hot wind injected downward from the engine portion of a car. The strength of the hot wind was different among car models. In four car models of seven car models used for the experiment, the surface temperature of the lawn rose to more than 55 degrees Celsius, and the damage may have come out. At the experiment using a type of a car with the strongest hot wind from engine, the lawn surface reached 70 degrees Celsius at the maximum. The damage occurred in the examination of 10 minutes. However, it was judged that the heat rise under the ground was small and there was no serious influence in the root of the lawn.