Intelligent Swing Doors - Reducing Air Infiltration Using Smarter Sensors

Abstract: When an automatic swing door is used in an entrance, the energy consumption increases. This is because the door cannot detect when the user has passed and therefore, for safety reasons, stands in the open position for too long. To make automatic swing doors more sustainable one needs smarter sensors that can cover a larger area and communicate with the door. In this thesis 11 different concepts of how to use more intelligent sensors to control the door to reduce the infiltration are presented. Both the times the door is opening, standing in the open position and closing are considered. To limit the air leakage even more reduction of the open angle is also analyzed. The aim is to make the door move like a manual door, which has the smallest air leakage. To see how swing doors are configured, a survey has been performed. The results show that the average cycle is over 16 seconds long. Further, to get a greater understanding of the air leakage a field test is made where the temperature is measured for different scenarios. The result shows a temperature drop larger than 5 degrees for a typical door cycle. By start closing the door sooner the energy losses could be reduced with over 60%. The result is an improved indoor climate as well as a smaller environmental impact.