Effect of People on Infiltration of Building Entrance with Air Curtains

摘要

Quantifying the infiltration rate through building entrance is directly related to evaluation of the energy performance of air curtains. However the effect of people below the air curtains was not considered previously, which may affect the evaluation accuracy of energy performance of air curtains. The objective of this research is to study the effect of people on infiltration rate through air curtains. Building models with and without people below an air curtain were developed and multiple CFD simulations were conducted. The simulation results indicated that for both scenarios with and without people below the air curtain, three flow patterns are observed: the optimum condition, the inflow break-through and the outflow break-through; for the air curtain modelled people standing under the air curtain improves the barrier effect of air curtain, reducing by 13% the infiltration rate compared to the air curtain without people.