Behind the curtains.

Air curtains for infiltration control - a computational fluid dynamics analysis.

An investigation has been carried out using computational fluid dynamics methods to study the performance of an air curtain at the door of a heated building. A number of operating conditions have been studied and observations are made on the effectiveness of infiltration control and energy use. Comparisons are also made with previously published design data and results from an accepted infiltration analysis. It is shown that the calculation method generates plausible and very detailed results which conform well to physical interpretation.

Cold bridge war.

              

Air curtain installations

Deals with the problems of open building passages and tunnel like entrances caused by thermal influences and wind currents. Shows advantages of air screening, especially where high pressure differences occur.

Shut that door!

Describes several types of door closing or air containment devices for use in industrial buildings, including automatic doors, flexible doors and air curtains. Discusses various forms of air curtain and lists factors that need considering when installing one, such as geographical location, size of door, use of premises, tightness of building etc.

Infiltration of air into cold stores.

Measures air exchange across open cold store doors using an anemometer and by tracer decay methods. Anemometer results show that an empirical factor of 0.68 should be applied to the predictive equation by Tamm. Observes a further reduction in air change rate (about 47% reduction) due to imperfect mixing of the air. Air curtains reduce infiltration by about 75-80% and plastic curtains by approx. 93%. Forklift traffic and internal circulation fans also affect air change rate.

Thermal performance of door systems - insulated doors may not be the answer.

Discusses 2 reports by the Agrement Board which indicate that insulated doors in busy industrial buildings such as warehouses do not save much energy. Further studies by the Bolton Gate co. show that the addition of a plastic strip curtain gives significant savings. When a door is open for 5 mins perhour, the mean saving can be 15% depending on outside temperature and the air leakage of the curtain. When the door is open for 15 mins per hour, the mean saving can be 29%. States that it is easier to use plastic strip curtains with horizontal folding shutters than with doors.

Wind attack on air curtains-an undetermined factor Windaanval op luchtgordijnen een onbekende factor

Air curtains are used to protect entrances of big buildings such as department stores and cold-storage warehouses. When designing an air curtain for a given situation, one needs to know the pressure difference between both sides of the curtain due to the temperature difference and forced ventilation, as well as the wind. In literature on air curtains the effect of wind is generally underestimated.

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