Door Infiltration Estimator Overview

Todd Jekel, Ph.D., P.E. 2017 IRC R&T Forum May 10-11, 2017
 What is infiltration?

 Infiltration: uncontrolled exchange of air

through openings between adjacent
spaces
 dock – outdoors
 production area – freezer
 dock – freezer (or cooler)
 Air exchange through openings (doors,
cracks, etc.)
 depends on temperature and
pressure difference
 sensible and latent
 Door Infiltration Air Flow Rate

 Open, unprotected doorway due to

temperature difference only
0 .5
 ρo 
Vopen = 13.26 ⋅ Adoor 1 −
  ⋅ ( gH door ) ⋅ Fm
0 .5

 ρi 
where
1.5
 2 
Fm =  1/ 3 
1 + (ρ i ρ o ) 
 Continuous Door Protection
 Definition
Vprotected = Vopen ⋅ (1 − ε / 100 )
 Some values:
Strip Curtain (closed) 93%
Vertical Air Curtain 50-80%
Horizontal Air Curtain 60-80%
Both Air- and Strip Curtain ~90%
 Hourly Door Open Time Fraction
 Only for doors that cycle open during passage (i.e.
not for strip curtains or air curtains)
 Definition

Dt =
(N P ⋅ tcycle )
3,600

 where NP is the number of passages per door per

hour, and tcycle is the cycle time from closed-open-
closed
 Fork Truck Traffic Effects
 For actuating doors or air curtains Vtraffic = 0
 The blocking of the open doorway and the passage of the
fork truck are assumed to offset one another
 For strip curtains
1.105 ⋅ N P

Vtraffic = (
⋅ To − Ti )1.74

60

 where NP is the number of passages per door per hour to

get the hourly flow rate due to fork truck passages
 Seal Losses
 Only for doors that have seals (i.e. actuating door)
 Definition
Vseals = Lseal ⋅ SLR

 where Lseal is the total length of the seal (i.e. door

perimeter) and SLR is the seal air tightness in cfm/ft
Door Type SLR [cfm/ft]
Sliding 0.25-0.5
Roll-up 1-4
 Total Infiltration Flow Rate

 Sum of all the appropriate volume flow rates for the

chosen technology

Vtotal = Dt ⋅ (1 − ε / 100 ) ⋅ Vopen + Vtraffic + (1 − Dt ) ⋅ Vseals

 Infiltration Load
*
S door = ρ i ⋅ Vdoor ⋅ (h[To , wi ] − hi )


Ldoor = ρ i ⋅ Vdoor (ho − h[To , wi ])*

Sdoor = sensible cooling load due to infiltration (Btu/min)

Ldoor = latent cooling load due to infiltration (Btu/min)
Vdoor = air infiltration volume flow (ft3/min)
T = dry bulb temperature (oF)
w = absolute humidity ratio (lbw/lba)
* assumes standard air & non-frosting conditions.
If frosting conditions, latent load should be multiplied by 1.13 to account for the latent heat of fusion of ice (144 Btu/lbm).
Example
Todd Jekel
Industrial Refrigeration Consortium
U.W. Madison
tbjekel@wisc.edu