Abstract:
An experimental study was conducted in a laboratory scale model in order to investigate how to reduce warm air infiltration into cold rooms through its doors using plastic strip curtains. The laboratory scale model consists of a prefabricated sandwiched panel walls room of inside dimensions (1.5 * 1.5 * 2) m with two doors each of dimensions ( 0.90 * 1.20) m .Plastic transparent strips overlapped 1 cm were installed just behind the door. The tracer gas technique was used to investigate the sealing effect achieved with the plastic strip curtain of 0.35 mm thickness and 20 cm strip width at different storage temperature. The storage temperature effect on the cold store infiltration air rate is also investigated. The results show that the plastic strip curtains were efficient to reduce air infiltration into cold rooms and as the storage temperature decreases the amount of infiltrated air increases.

Keywords: Air infiltration, Cold stores, Doors Sealing efficiency, Energy saving in cold rooms, Plastic strip curtains, Tracer gas technique