The impact of various hood shapes, and side panel and exhaust duct arrangements, on the performance of typical Chinese style cooking hoods
In Chinese commercial kitchens, a large amount of moisture and heat is produced and must be removed, which can require ventilation rates resulting in huge levels of energy consumption. Excessive airflow rates can increase unnecessary energy consumption and system life-cycle costs. For many middle and small scale commercial kitchens in China, the indoor, thermal environment is far worse than acceptable levels. The use of an efficient kitchen hood is essential to ensure a comfortable working environment and better energy conservation. In this study, many types of hood shapes and side panels were developed to improve the capture efficiency of traditional Chinese style cooking hoods. The arrangement of the exhaust ducts was also investigated. Basic site tests and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis were conducted. The simulated results showed that increasing hood volume did not improve capture performance. However, side panels did improve the capture efficiency, especially at higher positions. In addition, when the exhaust opening was located at the rear of the hood, the hood capture efficiency improvement was enhanced.