Local heating of a visitor corridor within a large site museum exhibition hall via an integrated jet ventilation and air curtain system

Abstract

Large exhibition halls of site museums typically accommodate cultural relics and visitors in the same open space. Generally, the visitor area occupies a small portion of the entire site, and the relic preservation area is surrounded by a visitor corridor. One of the main challenges at these sites is environmental control: meeting various thermal requirements, while reducing energy consumption and related expenses. In this study, we proposed an integrated system, consisting of a ground-based jet ventilation attachment and an air curtain, for local heating of a visitor corridor. An experimental exhibition hall and local heating system for the visitor corridor were constructed based on the spatial characteristics of Emperor Qin's Mausoleum Site Museum. A series of tests, based on changing the jet air velocity and switching the air curtain on and off, were conducted to evaluate the performance of the system. The results of these tests showed that the air curtain effectively reduced the impact of the large relic preservation area on the local environment of the visitor corridor, thereby achieving uniform heating in the visitor area using the jet ventilation system. Additionally, a jet air velocity of 1.5 m/s resulted in even heating throughout the visitor corridor and met the thermal comfort requirements of indoor spaces intended for short-term visitors and tours. Therefore, the proposed system provides an efficient and energy-saving strategy for local environmental control of visitor areas in large on-site exhibition halls.