Detailed numerical study of turbulent flows in air curtains

Air curtains are generally a set of vertical or horizontal plane jets used as ambient separator. In order to prevent entrainment, a good air curtain should provide a jet with low turbulence level, enough momentum to counteract pressure differences across the opening. Consequently, the analysis of the plenum before discharge should be taken into consideration. Hence, the main object of this paper is to study the discharge chamber geometry and the presence of blades for flow orientation at the exit of air curtains. This analysis is carried out in order to understand their influence on the characteristics of the jet produced.Studies presented are based on the detailed numerical simulation of the air curtain discharge plenum by meaans of Computational Fluid Dynamics method using symmetry-preserving formulation and unstructured meshes. The numerical solutions are compared and the influence of the turbulence model used, boundary conditions and computational domain selected are also investigated. Furthermore, experimental measurements of an air curtain prototype using Hot-Wire Anemometry technique are presented.