Numerical simulation of the performance of air curtains for doorway infiltration control.

This paper is concerned with the numerical modelling and investigation of the performance of air curtains employed to reduce air flow and heat transfer across open doors and between conditioned and unconditioned spaces. It has been found that the model based on a commercial Computational Fluid Dynamics software package can successfully predict the critical velocities and efficiencies of air curtains and the influence of external parameters such as wind speed. A number of design parameters relating to the positioning of air curtains to reduce heat transfer across open doors of air conditioned rooms have also been considered.