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Air Curtain Industry Introduces New Exciting Uses for a Mature Product
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ndustrial air curtain applications aren’t new, but plant engineers are finding a host of new uses for the decades-old product. Air curtains became staples for dock and ground-level door energy savings during the second half of the 20th Century, especially after the 1970’s oil embargos and ensuing energy price rise. Since then, industrial manufacturers spanning every possible category opted to outfit door openings with air curtains to save energy. In facilities for aerospace, automotive, off-highway and other manufacturing categories where doorways range up to 16-feet-wide or 30-feethigh, energy savings is critical for plant operation budgets. Recently, plant managers are also opting for uniform temperatures for both employee comfort and product quality assurance. Industrial employee comfort has become increasing important especially in northern regions where cold open doorway drafts affect employee health and productivity and potentially lead to union grievances. Product quality assurance can be improved and parts production shrinkage can be decreased by providing minimal temperature variances near sensitive areas, such as computer numerical control (CNC) processes. Air temperatures near open doorways in winter can fluctuate temperatures tens of degrees and consequently skew critical tolerances required for precision cutting, stamping, punching and other CNC processes.
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32 IMD AUGUST 2020
One example is a Miamisburg, Ohio-based metal preparation and fabrication supplier that was challenged by interior temperature fluctuations affecting sensitive production equipment near a shipping door. Industrial equipment dealer McCormick Equipment Co., Inc., Cincinnati, solved temperature fluctuations and significantly reduced production discards with an air curtain. McCormick installed a 12-foot long horizontal mount air curtain over the client's 12 (w) x 14 (h)-foot shipping door, which is open four hours/day, five days/week. Although quality assurance was the motivation, an energy audit was still performed to show the added benefits of an air curtain. Payback from energy savings alone was 1.01 years, based on 32 weeks of wintertime operation.
How Air Curtains Work in Industrial Applications Air curtain technology draws interior air from the facility and discharges it through field-adjustable (+/- 20-degree) linear nozzles that "seal" the doorway with a non-turbulent air stream meeting the floor approximately at the door opening threshold. A properlysized air curtain can contain approximately 70 to 80-percent of that air and return it to the space. An air curtain separates the indoor/ outdoor environments and effectively prevents outside air, dust and flying insect infiltration by discharging air ranging from 1,000
