TY - JOUR
T1 - Air curtain performance
T2 - Introducing the adapted separation efficiency
AU - Alanis Ruiz, Claudio
AU - van Hooff, Twan
AU - Blocken, Bert
AU - van Heijst, Gert Jan
PY - 2021/1/15
Y1 - 2021/1/15
N2 - Air curtains (ACs) are plane turbulent impinging jets that are used to separate two environments in terms of heat and mass transfer while still allowing traffic between these environments. The many applications of ACs across a wide variety of industries makes the evaluation of their performance an important but difficult task. The aim of this paper is to introduce a performance indicator, called the adapted separation efficiency, that is suitable for different types of systems that may involve different AC configurations (downward blowing, upward blowing, lateral blowing, multiple jets, etc.) at multiple scales, different transported quantities (heat, water vapor, particles, gases, etc.) subjected to various transport mechanisms (advection, molecular and turbulent diffusion) and varying environmental conditions (gradients in environmental pressure and/or density). It is defined using a conventional efficiency formula. The principle of this performance indicator is illustrated with a generic case study where the performance is evaluated for two basic AC configurations involving cross-jet pressure and density gradients, as well as different jet momentum fluxes. The case study is conducted based on computational fluid dynamics employing validated large eddy simulations.
AB - Air curtains (ACs) are plane turbulent impinging jets that are used to separate two environments in terms of heat and mass transfer while still allowing traffic between these environments. The many applications of ACs across a wide variety of industries makes the evaluation of their performance an important but difficult task. The aim of this paper is to introduce a performance indicator, called the adapted separation efficiency, that is suitable for different types of systems that may involve different AC configurations (downward blowing, upward blowing, lateral blowing, multiple jets, etc.) at multiple scales, different transported quantities (heat, water vapor, particles, gases, etc.) subjected to various transport mechanisms (advection, molecular and turbulent diffusion) and varying environmental conditions (gradients in environmental pressure and/or density). It is defined using a conventional efficiency formula. The principle of this performance indicator is illustrated with a generic case study where the performance is evaluated for two basic AC configurations involving cross-jet pressure and density gradients, as well as different jet momentum fluxes. The case study is conducted based on computational fluid dynamics employing validated large eddy simulations.
KW - Air curtain
KW - Computational fluid dynamics (CFD)
KW - Impinging jet
KW - Infiltration
KW - Separation efficiency
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85097103693&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.buildenv.2020.107468
DO - 10.1016/j.buildenv.2020.107468
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85097103693
VL - 188
JO - Building and Environment
JF - Building and Environment
SN - 0360-1323
M1 - 107468
ER -