Investigation on air curtain performance for controlling pollutant dispersion around an isolated semi-open industrial building

Abstract The dispersion of dust during vehicle unloading in semi-open industrial buildings poses environmental and health risks. Air curtain is normally used as one of the effective dust removal technologies, while its performance under natural wind around an isolated semi-open building has been rarely reported. This study aims to evaluate the potential of air curtains as a solution for this issue. To validate the used turbulence model and numerical methods, comparisons are made with reported wind tunnel experimental results. The isolated semi-open industrial building is subsequently established to assess the impact of air curtains at varying jet velocities (6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16 and 18 m/s) and jet angles (0°, 5°, 10° and 15°) on pollutant leakage. Results show that as the air curtain flow speed increases from 6 m/s to 14 m/s, the control efficiency rises from -42.1% to 98.1%. Meanwhile, further increases of flow speed show a slight decrease in efficiency, down to 97.18%. This study provides preliminary insights into the application of air curtains in semi-open industrial buildings.