Air curtain or air door is an electronic machine installed at the over door or window position for the entrance of a building. It creates a strong invisible air wall with high-speed blowers and forms the environmental separation between outdoors and indoors. It usually works together with air conditioner systems or heating systems to protect conditioned air from outdoor extreme temperatures.
Air Curtain Applications
Air curtains are widely applied in many different industries, and commercial and industrial applications are the most popular industries among them.
- For commercial air curtains, it includes industries like retail, restaurant, cafe, airport terminals, metro stations, railway stations, schools, hospitals, banks, etc.
- lFor industrial air curtains: manufacturing factory, warehouse, cold room, clean room, logistic distribution center, etc.
Benefits of Air Curtain:
- Save Energy
Air curtains reduce HVAC system workload for the long term by stopping conditioned air from escaping outdoors through doors, and windows.
- Climate Separation
Air curtains protect the indoor climate from extreme outdoor climate by high-speed airflow. It contributes to reaching precise control of temperature and humidity indoors
- Insect Control
The Air curtain creates a strong air stream near the door entrance and stops insects, flies, mosquitoes, and bugs from outside and improves indoor sanitation. Especially, it does make sense for restaurants, cafes, food processing plants, and food service premises.
- Convenience
Air curtains are very friendly to customers and staff. With air curtains, people can pass through the entrance easily without any extra action when doors are open, particularly, customers are more likely to enter a shop with the door wide open, and the business will get better than shops with doors closed. Imagine that a mother with a stroller or some customer with baggage enters a retail shop with an air curtain over the door, they do not have to open the door very hard. And also for workers from industrial industries, the application of air curtains over doors make them work more efficiently when they drive on a forklift through the entrance, they do not have to stop their forklift to open the door.
- Visibility
With air curtains over the door, the shop operator can open the door widely and show as much commodity as possible to potential customers outdoors. It can increase business opportunities by showing more goods to them. Multiple commerce research report shows that people are more likely to be attracted to and enter a shop with clear inside visibility.
- Safety
Water, milk, cafe, or other liquid on the floor of kitchens, restaurants, waiting rooms, and restrooms bring a potential danger of slipping. Air curtain jet high-speed air to the floor and dry it in a short time. It decreases the possibility of slipping. Imagine what a disaster to have a customer get a slip in your shop, and I bet he or she will not come to your shop again after that.
Key Factors On Selecting Appropriate Air Curtains
- Dimension
Dimension of air curtains is always the top priority concern for installation. Firstly, you need to make sure there is fairly enough space over the door for air curtain installation. Particularly, you need to pay special attention to the coordination between the length of air curtains and the width of the entrance of the door, which is quite important for the working effectiveness of the air curtain. Usually, there are some regular air curtain lengths available, including 90cm, 100cm, 120cm,150cm, 180cm, and 200cm, etc. All you need to do is make sure the length of the air curtains is able to cover the width of the door entrance completely.
For example, for an entrance door with a width of 110cm, an air curtain of 120cm length is a perfect option;
But an air curtain with a length of 90cm can not work well in this case, it can not cover the entrance door with a width of 110cm completely, and around 20cm space is not covered in the effective range of the air curtain.
An air curtain with a length of 150cm also works in this case but it’s somehow too long for the door with only 110CM width, there will be 40 CM extra covering range than actual need.
What if for an entrance with a width of 230cm? In this case, you can install multiple air curtains with different mixed lengths, an air curtain of 90CM and also an air curtain of 150CM will be a perfect solution. Air curtains with custom lengths are also available, all you need to do is contact the distributor or manufacturer for further details.
- Air Speed & Door Entrance Height
Air velocity is also an important factor in the selection of air curtains. Air velocities vary for different air curtain models, each air velocity has its effective work distance, which should equal the entrance height. For example, for a door entrance with a height of 2.3m, an air curtain with 11m/s air velocity generates an effective air blow distance is 2.5m ~3m, which is fairly sufficient for the door entrance with of 2.3m height in this case. The Air curtain generates high-speed air from the nozzle position, air blow toward the floor and air velocity fades away, so air velocity should be strong enough even at a far position can cover this entrance door completely. But for a higher door entrance like 3.5m, the air curtain with 11m/s can not reach the 3.5m range, air blow turns weak, and can not effectively isolate conditioned air or insects. So you need to provide local sales with the correct height of the door entrance and then they will suggest appropriate air curtains for you.
- Air volume Value
What are the differences between air curtains with more air volume and those with less air volume? We know that an air curtain creates an invisible air wall at the entrance area. Air volume is something like the thickness of the air wall. Here is an example, suppose that there are two same air curtains with the same value of air velocity but different air volumes, one with bigger air volume creates a strengthened and relatively stronger air wall or air barrier, and the other with less air volume creates thin and relatively weaker air wall. So the isolation effect of an air curtain gets better as the air volume value is bigger. Air volume value results from many factors, such as motor capacity, airflow structure design, impeller dimension, and structure, bearing efficiency, working environment conditions, etc.
Ending
There are some other factors that affect air curtain applications, such as air curtain housing material, motor type, control system, architectural structure, etc. You’re welcome to find us for further information. Last but not least when you need help or suggestions for air curtains, go to find some reliable air curtain manufacturers just like Airtechz.
