www.hcr-inc.com - Air Door Efficiency Results

HCR Air Door Independent Third-Party Test Lab Results

January 2011	About Creative Thermal Solutions (CTS) The testing was done at CTS Labs of Urbana, Illinois, an independent third-party laboratory. CTS Labs concentrates its performance testing in industries that require specialized heating and cooling needs. The lab focuses on products offering environmental sustainability, increasing energy efficiency, and reducing energy consumption. CTS Labs is one of the few test facilities in North America that can provide credible confirmation of advertised performance specifications. Technical approach and the strategy as well as the design, analysis, and measurement methods implemented at CTS have been used and honed over the past decades of researchers and educators within the Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Center at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The engineering staff has been seasoned by research, design, and close cooperation with industrial needs. CTS engineers hold degrees and advanced degrees in a variety of engineering disciplines, predominately mechanical. The engineers at CTS have experience in design and analysis of systems and components, fundamental research in two-phase flow, pressure drop, heat transfer, mixture properties, material properties, cryogenics, and performance maximization of full systems.
The extensive testing was conducted from June to December 2010. The results verified that the HCR Model AC (Single Air Door) is 80% energy efficient* when stopping air infiltration and energy transfer between rooms with different temperatures.
The performance analysis completed on the HCR Air Door included: Quantify the performance of an HCR horizontal stream re-circulatory air door Compare the performance of the air door to an opening with no air door Document the door's performance by independently measuring total energy input on the hot and cold sides of a calorimetric environmental chamber when steady state conditions are reached

CTS Lab engineers explain the process of the HCR Performance Evaluation Testing
How the Test Was Performed
CTS Labs configured an environmental chamber with a 2.1m by 2.1m opening separating the warm and cold sides. The chamber was instrumented to measure all energy transfer into and out of each side of the chamber allowing the quantification of the heat transfer through the open doorway when each side is maintained at a different temperature. The heat transfer was measured through the open door with the warm side at 24ºC and 60% relative humidity and the cold side at 4ºC. The horizontal air flow re-circulatory air curtain was then installed, optimized, and tested at the same ambient conditions. There is clear visual evidence measured by air thermocouple grids and shown in the temperature profiles developed from them which exemplifies the effectiveness of the air curtain at creating a barrier between the hot and cold sides. In addition to energy savings, there is a comparable benefit in the reduction of humidity transfer to the cold side which helps to prevent icing and condensation on products and on the floor. It also helps to prevent frosting of the cooling coils which results in fewer defrost cycles being necessary. Reduced frosting of cooling coils improves performance and further reduces energy consumption.


No Air Door at Opening	With Air Door at Opening

Chamber Cross-Section Temperature Profile

At 80% effectiveness* the horizontal recirculatory air curtain would be compared to a typical fast acting traffic door operating at 20% door open time (DOT). The issue with the traffic door is that it provides no barrier when the door is open and this can create significant energy issues in extremely high traffic applications. In high traffic applications the single horizontal recirculatory air curtain would save energy when standard traffic doors are operating above a 20% DOT. This very high traffic exists in many large grocery distribution centers. Many other cold storage facilities; however, do not have this extremely high traffic. In these applications the coupling of a horizontal recirculatory air curtains with a fast acting traffic door will provide the highest energy savings possible. If an 80% effective barrier is provided whenever the traffic door is open and the traffic door provides a 95% + effective barrier whenever it is closed. The net result is extremely low energy loss at a doorway.

* For exact details on air efficiencies please contact your Jamison or HCR representative, email sales@hcrairdoors.com, or call 800-532-3667.

Request the White Paper on the Evaluation of Horizontal Recirculatory Air Curtain Efficiencies - Cooler to Conditioned Space, D. Rhyner, HCR, Inc.