| Company: |
Berner International |
| Industry: |
HVAC |
| Application: |
Air Door |
| MCAD System: |
SolidWorks |
An air door, sometimes called an air curtain, employs a controlled stream of air aimed across an opening to create an air seal. This seal separates different environments, while allowing a smooth, unhindered flow of traffic and unobstructed vision through the opening.
Effective air doors must be engineered to deliver a flow of air with specific volume, velocity and uniformity in order to provide a reliable seal all the way to the floor. "Short change any one and the door does not work," says Berner engineer Phil Thomas.
At Berner Thomas uses CFdesign to assist and accelerate the development of air doors that can stop 30 mph gusts and work in openings up to 30-ft high. The ability to conduct extensive early stage design reviews prior to the construction of a physical prototype gives Berner engineers the ability to efficiently sort through all the 'what ifs' until all product quality and innovation objectives are achieved.
Recently Thomas put CFdesign to work in a slightly different way, as a sales tool. According to Thomas customers were having a hard time appreciating the performance attributes delivered by the Berner product line. "Since air is invisible our advantages are invisible," summarized Thomas. "We needed a way to show customers the interrelationship between volume, velocity, and uniformity and more specifically we wanted to show the superior performance versus competitors."
Thomas built three models in SolidWorks to accurately represent air doors from Berner and two if its competitors. Transient flow and thermal simulations were run in CFdesign and the interactive results were added to a sales presentation to show that properly designed air doors can effectively separate a 15 mph Winter wind from a room with 60°F air. "CFdesign made our invisible advantages visible and allowed our customers to see for themselves the advantages of our product line."
Beyond the sales and marketing impact, Thomas routinely uses CFdesign to find better plenums, optimize fans spacing and their angles without the time and expense connected to physical prototyping.
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