Abstract
The efficiency of air curtain in reducing infiltration and associated energy usage is currently evaluated statically by using an efficiency factor, η air, based on single steady/static condition, which is often not the case for actual buildings under variable weather conditions and door usages. Based on a new method to consider these dynamic effects on air curtains, this study uses a dynamic efficiency factor η B in terms of whole building site end-use energy to assess the efficiency of air curtains when compared to single doors (i.e. without air curtains) and vestibule doors. Annual energy simulations were conducted for two reference building models considering their specific door usage schedules in 16 climate zone locations in the North America. The variations of the proposed efficiency factor for different climate zones illustrated the dynamic impacts of weather, building, unit fan energy and door usage frequency on air curtain efficiency. A sensitivity study was also conducted for the operation temperature conditions of air curtain and showed that η B also considers these operational conditions. It was thus concluded that using whole building site end-use energy to calculate the efficiency factor, ηB, can provide more realistic estimates of the performance of air curtains operations in buildings than the existing static efficiency factor.
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Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the financial and technical support from the Air Management and Control Association (AMCA), Mars Air Systems, Berner International, Powered Aire and Inter Code Incorporated. The authors would also like thank Mrs. Bing Liu and Mr. Rahul Athalye at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) for answering various inquiries regarding energy modeling and DOE reference building models’ details.
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Goubran, S., Qi, D. & Wang, L.L. Assessing dynamic efficiency of air curtain in reducing whole building annual energy usage. Build. Simul. 10, 497–507 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12273-017-0349-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12273-017-0349-0