Study on the Evaluation of Sealing Performance of Horizontal Blowing Air Curtain Installed in Doorways

Air curtains are installed to reduce heat loss due to drafts intruding into the indoor through the open doorways, and play the role of separating two climatic zones and different environmental zones. It is also used to protect the workplace from impurities or to reduce the spread of cigarette smoke in restaurants. Recently, aircraft to provide the individual air barrier by the vertical blowing air curtains have installed a physical barrier in the breathing zone between adjacent seats to protect passengers from COVID-19. The main factors affecting the sealing performance (SP) of the air curtain are the difference of temperature and pressure between indoor and outdoor, and are used to make the proper jet flow an air barrier with the high airtightness. Until now, various types of air curtains are manufactured and sold. Air curtains with the improved SP do not only have a discharge port but also a suction port. This study was conducted to evaluate the SP of the horizontal blowing air curtain according to the discharge pressure, and to select the minimized volume flow rate required for creating the proper zone separation. The volume flow rate of outdoor air intruding into the indoor through the doorways is used to evaluate the SP of the air curtain, and is calculated using the SVE4 proposed by Murakami in this study.