What is Air Curtain?
An air door or air curtain is a device used to prevent air, contaminants, or flying insects from moving from one open space to another. The most common implementation is a downward-facing blower fan mounted over an entrance to a building, or over an opening between two spaces conditioned at different temperatures.
Deepak Sharma
8/9/20241 min read
In its simplest application, an air curtain is a continuous broad stream of air circulated across a doorway of a conditioned space. It reduces penetration of insects and unconditioned air into a conditioned space by forcing an air stream over the entire entrance. The air stream layer moves with a velocity and angle such that any air that tries to penetrate the curtain is entrained. Air curtain effectiveness in preventing infiltration through an entrance generally ranges from 60 to 80%.
Air doors are often used where doors are required to stay open for operational purposes, such as at loading docks and vehicle entrances. They can be used to help keep flying insects out by creating forceful turbulence, or help keep out outside air, thus reducing infiltration through the opening. Cold drafts can be avoided by mixing in warm air heated by the air door. Heated air doors are commonly used when supplemental heat is needed for a space, and to reduce the wind chill factor inside the opening, in colder climates.
Further applications include customer entryways, airplane hangars, cargo doors, drive through windows, restaurant doors, or shipping receiving doors. Non-heated air curtains are often used in conjunction with cold storage and refrigerated rooms.
Air doors can be equipped with or without heaters to heat the air. The fan must be powerful enough to generate a jet of air that can reach the floor. There are some studies in the scientific literature that present analytical methods to predict the sealing efficiency obtained with an air curtain.